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THE 



GEOEGICS 



VIRGIL. 

BY JOHN BENSON B S E. 



FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION. 



LONDON: 
PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STRE$J\ 

AND CHARING CROSS. 
1865. 









g 



205449 
'13 




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THE GEORGICS. 



BOOK 1. 



TTTHAT makes rich land, 'neath what ascendant sign 
To plough the glebe and join the elm and vine, 
Maecenas, hear: — of flocks and herds I sing, 
Of frugal bees experience too I bring. 

Ye mightiest Lights that rule the passing year, 5 

Father Liber, Alma Ceres, hear! 

If thro' your gifts the teeming earth doth yield 
For glands Chaonian the corn-waying field, 
If by your gift the Acheloian draught, 
Is tempered in the cup by mortals quaffed; 10 

Hither, hither, Fauns and Dryads come, 

1 sing your gifts, gods of the rustic home; 

And Neptune thou, who from the cloven earth 
With trident stroke didst give the courser birth ; 

B 



2 THE GEOEGICS. Book I. 

Thou, denizen of groves, — in Caean shades 15 

Three hundred snowy oxen crop thy glades ; 

Thou Tegeaean Pan — protecting flocks, 

O quit thy country, quit Lycaean rocks, 

Quit Maenalus, and come propitious here ; 

Minerva, giver of the Olive, hear! 20 

And thou, inventor of the crooked plough; 

Sylvane, with uprooted cypress thou : 

Ye gods and goddesses of grove and glade, 

Who guard the seed and tend the tender blade 

From Heaven dispensing genial sun and shade ; — 25 

And thou, most of all, whose future fate 

The gods in council now deliberate, 

O Caesar whether provinces or towns 

Shall be thy care, in thee the votary owns, 

Binding maternal myrtle on his brow, 30 

The god of seasons and of fruits below: 

The god of ocean wouldst thou choose to be, 

The mariner shall only worship thee, 

And utmost Thule, and glad Tethys own 

And buy with all her waves thee for her son: 35 

Or wouldst thou add thy planet to the Zone, 

Between Erigone and Chelae, one 



Book I. THE GEOKGICS. 3 

Space vacant lies, — Scorpio contracts his claws 

And Heaven itself an ampler space accords: 

Whate'er thou be, — for let not Tartarus 40 

To thee aspire, be that far from us, 

Tho' Greece admire those fields Elysian, 

And tho' Proserpina doth there remain, 

Nor cares to follow Ceres back again : 

Whate'er thou be, thy favoring aid I ask, 45 

Bow down a gracious ear upon my task; 

Pity I pray, the struggling husbandman, 

And use thyself to hear the vows of man. 

In early spring, when from the mountain snow 
The streams descend and blander zephyrs blow 50 

And tame the glebe, — yoke, yoke anew the steer, 
And furbish with fresh work the rusted share. 
That corn-land best repays the farmer's pains 
That twice the sun and twice the frost sustains, 
The barn-floor groans beneath its gathered grains. 55 
But ere thou break the glebe-land to the plough, 
Behoves it well the tide and time to know, 
Behoves to know the climate and the soil, 
And what will pay and what will mock the toil ; 

B 2 



4 THE GEORGICS. Book I. 

Here corn will flourish, there the grape will grow, 60 

Here acorn glands, unbidden grass below ; 

Dost thou not see how Tmolus doth supply 

Its croceate odours, India, ivory, 

How naked Chalybes their iron yield, 

And frankincense the soft Sabsean field, 65 

Pontus the medicated Castor slays, 

Epirus mares breeds for Eleian bays? 

For Nature first imposed her constant laws, 

And to each spot assigned a local cause, 

Since first Deucalion, in the vacant space 70 

Cast stones to renovate the human race : 

A hardy race, up therefore with the year 

And yoke the lusty bulls and urge the share, 

Plough the stiff lands and let the solar ray 

There penetrate, and triturate the clay : 75 

If poor the soil, or light, the task delay, 

Beneath Arcturus lightly wound the lay, 

So shall the first o'er weeds the mastery gain, 

The last its kindlier moisture shall retain. 

The harvest o'er, in fallow leave the soil, 80 

Nor cast away on wasted land thy toil ; 



Book I. THE GEOKGICS. 5 

Crop with alternate seeds of pulse and grain. 

Let pods leguminous wave o'er the plain, 

Vetches, or lupins, with their stems untrue; 

Flax starves the soil, oat crops consume it too, 85 

And poppies steep it in Lethgean dew. 

Yet may you with such alternate the grain, 
If by manuring you repair the drain, 
And farmyard muck with lavish hand bestow, 
And sordid ashes liberally throw, 90 

Then crops alternate may reward your pains, 
And fallows saved, the land gives annual gains. 
And oft it profits well to fire the land, 
And burn the weeds and stubble as they stand ; 
Whether some dormant virtue be revealed, 95 

Or damps and harmful vapours be expelled, 
Whether it cleave tenacious depths of earth 
And give imprisoned elements new birth, 
Or with astringent power close it fast 
'Gainst heats solstitial and the borean blast. 100 

And who with harrows breaks the inert clod, 
Or with the crate of hurdle brushes sod, 
On him, from high Olympus, Ceres smiles : 
Or who the soil's tenacity beguiles 



THE GEOEGICS. Book I. 



With ploughings frequent, and who levels low 105 

The furrows, with oblique and upturned plough. 

And ask, Ye husbandmen! the Gods on high 

For humid summers and for winters dry, 

For wintry dust doth make a joyful field, 

And so it is, that Mysia's harvests yield no 

And Gargarus their grain-crops unexcelled. 

What shall I say of him who sows the land, 
And spreads without delay the crumbling sand, 
And leads the irrigating waters there, 
And when the droughty field is grey and bare 115 

Who opes the sluices, and the waters flow 
With murmuring freshness pebbly channels thro', 
Feeding the plain beneath its verdant bank. 
Or what of him, who when the herb grows rank 
Crops off its free luxuriance ere it rise; 120 

Or drains the marsh the sand to fertilize ; 
Or when abounding rivers rise, of him, 
Who leads o'er plains the tributary stream; 
When the ditch reeks with miasmatic steam. 

And now to mar the labours of the year 125 

Strymonian cranes and villain geese appear, 



BookI. THE GEORGICS. 7 

And bitter weeds, and overhanging shade 

Inimical unto the rising blade. 

For He, the Sire, ordained it so to be, 

Nor willed Earth's harvests to be garner'd free, 130 

He chaseth sluggardness forth from his reign, 

And chasteneth the human heart with pain: 

He, the black serpent fang envenomed, made,' 

'Twas He who bad the midnight wolf to raid, 

Forbad the oak its honey to distil, 135 

And founts of wine repressed in every rill ; 

He troubled Ocean, hid the spark of fire, 

So made the human intellect inquire 

And gather from the furrow seeds of wheat, 

And strike forth from the flint its latent heat, 140 

And launch the hollowed trunk upon the wave ; 

Then stars were numbered, and the seamen gave 

Names to the constellations, Arcton bright 

And Hyades and Pleiades were hight : — 

Then lime and toils for bird and beast were set, 145 

The glade beleaguered was with dog and net, 

The cast-net smote the river, and the sein 

Quitting the land took tribute of the main, 



THE GEOKGICS. 



Book I. 



150 



loo 



Then iron steeled the axe and serried saw, 
(For the wedge only cleft the tree before) 
Whence various arts, hard labour conquered all, 
And urgent poverty supplied the call. 

'Twas Ceres first taught man to sow the seed, 
When sacred groves failed to supply his need, 
When first Dodona glands and fruits denied, 
And toil and labour better fruits supplied. 
Then thistles choked the cultivated field, 
And the wheat-stalk by mildew was assailed, 
The corn-plant fell, and rising in its stead, 
Burdock and cockle the fair field invade, 
Wild oats and darnel with malignant shade : 
Unless you urge the harrow and the share, 
Scare off the birds, and prune the hedges near, 
With vows invoke the beneficial rain, 
Altho' full crops reward your neighbour's pain, 
Go, shake the forest oaks, for mast instead of grain. 

Xow to describe each rustic implement, 
To sow the seed, and store the harvest sent; 
The ponderous and crooked plough, the share, 
The wain, the Eleusinian matron's care, 170 



160 



165 



Book I. THE GEORGICS. 9 

The tribulum, the harrow, and the sledge, 

The wicker pannier, hurdle from the hedge, 

And mystic Vannus of Iacchus: — Ye who list 

To gain the name of Agriculturist, 

Must needs have these and more, to gather grist. 175 

And for thy plough, bend down the growing plant, 

And force it to the angle that you want, 

Eight feet of draught-beam furnished with two ears, 

And sockets of reduplicated shares; 

The ploughtail chesnut, linden be the yoke 180 

Well seasoned from thy hearth by heat and smoke : 

More precepts, old and manifold, there are, 

But the trite subject warns me to forbear. 

Thy threshing-floor by heavy roller pressed, 
Must with the hand and concrete clay be drest, 185 
Lest weeds should spring unbidden, and the ground 
Yawn and produce the plagues which then abound; 
The tiny mouse beneath the garner'd floor 
Will scoop his domicile and hoard his store, 
There the blind mole will dig his resting-place, 190 

The toad his haunt, the weevil leave its trace, 
And emmets lodge their frugal prescient race. 



10 THE GEOKGICS. Book I. 

Go, mark the groves too at the budding year, 
If on the almond leaves or bloom appear ; 
If bloom predominate the foliage o'er 195 

It bodes hot summer and abundant store, 
But from luxuriance of leaf, infer 
Small heaps of grain from overgrowth of straw. 

Some husbandmen will medicate their grain, 
In nitre steep, with black amurca stain, 200 

So doth the germinating principle 
Take readier root, a lesser heat will swell, 
And lesser moisture nurture it as well. 
Yet have I seen and known the fairest grain, 
Culled with all care, degenerate again; 205 

Fate so ordains, that all should downwards tend, 
All retrograde, all in confusion end : 
JSTot, not unlike the boatman, that doth row 
The ceaseless stream against, which takes his prow, 
And one unguarded moment hath him lost 210 

The toil and labour of an hour's cost. 

For us, the constellations of the skies, 
Arcturus, Draco, and the Kids arise, 
For us, as for the wearied mariner 

Who home returning doth his scallop steer 215 

Through jaws of Helle, from the Euxine drear. 



Book I. THE GEOEGICS. 11 

And when the Sun in Libra parts the day, 
Up boys, and yoke the oxen and away! 
Up now, and sow the barley o'er the plain 
Till autumn stop thee, deluging with rain; 220 

Sow now the flax, the cereal poppy sow, 
And whilst the season suffers, speed the plough: 
Beans in the spring, trefoil and millet spare 
Till Taurus golden-horned doth ope the year, 
And Sirius yields unto his adverse star. 225 

But if on farinaceous crops you trust, 
And the fat soil bear harvests so robust, 
When the Atlantides to Ocean wend, 
And Ariadne's Grnossian stars descend, 
Then, not till then, commit the nobler seed, 230 

Hope of thy profit, mainstay of thy need : 
Some or ere Maia couches need begin, 
But loads of straw with empty husks they win, 
If tares or simple vetches, humble grain! 
Nor lentils of Pelusium you disdain, 235 

Bootes setting, bids thee to begin, 
And sow away till winter's frosts set in. 

And therefore 'tis, the glorious solar path 
Its twelve distinctive constellations hath : 



12 THE GEOBGICS. Book I. 

Five Zones too bound the Orb, the centre one 240 

Scorched by the blazing sun, the Torrid Zone ; 

Two Frigid to the right and left are lost 

Closed up with storm, caerulean ice and frost : 

The intermediate twain, the Gods concede 

To mortal man, tempered to human need : 245 

Touching on both of these, the annual sun 

With course oblique its Zodiac doth run, 

To Scythia and Eiphsean Mounts ascends, 

And downwards in its turn to Lybia tends : 

One Pole sublime is ever in our sight, 250 

The other Styx beholds, the Manes and dark night. 

Here, Draco, like a mighty river, holds 

The topmost place, the Arctoi in his folds, 

The Arctoi that avoid the bounding main; 

There, so they say, Night holds eternal reign 255 

In silence and impenetrable shade, — 

Or else Aurora, rosy-fingered maid, 

From thence doth lead the dawn, when Phoebus bright 

Eeins in the East the snorting steeds of light, 

Whilst Hesperus below doth usher in the night. 260 

And hence it is the Heavens do foreshow 

The seasons of the harvest and the plough, 



Book I. THE GEORGICS. 



What time to launch upon the faithless main, 

What time to shelter the armed fleet again, 

What time to level low the mighty pine. 265 

Such use for us hath each revolving sign, 

The seasons four have each their harbinger, 

And man by them anticipates the year. 

When winter's storms shut labourers at home, 
Prepare for spring-tide and the work to come ; 270 

Point blunted shares, measure and score thy stock, 
And hollow out thy skiff, and mark thy flock, 
Sharpen the forks and stakes, and for the vines 
Lay in a stock of Amerinan bines ; 
Now cull and weave thy osiers one by one, 275 

And roast thy grain and grind it on the stone. 

Some works there be, nor right nor codes gainsay 
As just and lawful on a festal day ; 
Keligion none forbids the stream to flow, 
To bar the ripened harvest from its foe, 280 

To snare the bird, to fire the noxious brake, 
To plunge the panting bleaters in the lake, 
Oft doth the villager with patient toil 
Visit the city with his fruits and oil, 



14 THE GEOKGICS. Book I. 

At eve returning with a weighty mass, 285 

Millstone, or pitch upon the tardy ass. 

The Moon herself doth changing indicate 
Auspicious days, and those opposed by Fate: 
The fifth avoid — Orcus was born thereon, 
And the Eunienides, — Terra her brood, anon, 290 

Casus, Iapetus, Typhosus rude, 

Produced and being gave, with hate to Heaven endued. 
Thrice did those dread conspirators essay 
Ossa on Pelion, and that mass to lay 
Wooded Olympus on: and three times did the Sire 295 
Cast down the heap with Heaven's resistless fire. 
The seventeenth is good, then oxen tame, 
Plant vineyards, place the web upon the frame ; 
The ninth brings wayworn travellers relief, 
But bodes no end of mischief to the thief. 300 

Some works there be that best affect the night, 
Or dewy morn beneath Eous bright: 
Then gather stalks and stems, then mow the mead, 
The dews nocturnal aid such arduous deed: 
By winter's firelight the labourer 305 

Kends torches from the trunk of unctuous fir, 



BookI. THE GEOEGICS. 15 

The whilst his partner bending o'er the loom 
With song and gladness cheers the nuptial home, 
Or skims with verdant bough the brazen pan, 
Where Vulcan tempers Bacchant draughts for man. 310 

But ruddy Ceres is in summer reaped, 
The threshing-floor in summer-tide is heaped, 
Then plough and sow, the winter thee defies. 
Distribute then, as far as in thee lies, 
And glad the labouring rustic with thy store, 315 

Open to mirth thine hospitable door, 
As when the weather-beaten barks return, 
And enter port with garlands on each stern. 
With acorn-glands then fill thy garners full, 
And laurel, olive, myrtle-berries cull ; 320 

Set snares for cranes, and chase the timid hare, 
And plant the nets and toils to catch the deer, 
And when the winter bringeth frost and snow, 
With Balearic sling smite down the doe. 

Of autumn's storms, and stars autumnal now, 325 

On shorter days when milder breezes blow, 
The work which then behoves to do, I sing : 
What work beside in watery clouded spring, 



16 THE GEOKGICS. Book I. 

And what when milky fruit outbursts the sheath : 

Often have I, the summer solstice 'neath, 330 

What time the rustic reaper seeks the plain, 

And wheat and barley bend with yellow grain, 

Oft have I seen the Sons of Air at war, 

The heavy ears uprooted hurled afar, 

Tossed wracked and twisted in the whirlwinds round ; 335 

And often then a deluge sweeps the ground, 

Black clouds with fetid tempest gather o'er, 

Down on devoted lands the torrents pour 

Sweeping the gathered harvests as they flow, 

And filling hollowed river-beds below 340 

Kaging and roaring as down down they go. 

And He, the Sire, shrouded in night of cloud, 

Midst coruscating lightning thunders loud, 

Earth trembles and beasts flee, and mortals stand 

In awe and doubt of the immortal hand ; 345 

He casts the flaming bolt, behold it smite 

E-hodope, Athos, or Ceraunia's height; 

The sons of Auster rave midst fog and rain, 

And now the groves and now the shores complain. 

Of stars and skies then mark the time and tide, 350 
Where the coid star of Saturn doth abide, 
And where Cyllenius hot on high doth ride. 



BookI. THE GEORGICS. 17 



But first and chiefly, venerate the Gods. 
Make thee a rustic altar, built of sods, 
Offer and pay thereon thine annual vows 355 

To Ceres, soon as spring serene allows : 
Then the fat lambs and then the sweetest wines, 
And sweet repose beneath the mountain-pines. 
Pay unto Ceres, rustics, rites divine, 
With milk and honey and libated wine : 360 

Thrice round the corn-field let the victim wend, 
And choirs of youths and maidens him attend, 
Invoking Ceres, as the rustic's friend: 
Nor put a sickle to the harvest-ground, 
Or ere with brows with oaken garland crowned, 365 

The dance and chant of praise to Ceres doth resound. 

And that we may by certain signals learn, 
And heat and cold and every wind discern, 
The Sire committed to the moon to show 
What it befits the husbandman to know, 370 

When Auster lulls, and when to stall the herd. 
By sure presage the rising storm is heard, 
The agitated sea begins to swell, 
The murmur of the mountain doth foretell, 



18 THE GEORGICS. Book I, 

Answering afar to the resounding shore, 375 

Joining and mingling with the forests' roar. 

Let barks beware, when sea-fowl quit the main, 
And the light sea-mew fears its native plain, 
When herons quit the marsh, and wing their flight 
Midst clouds of Heaven away from mortal sight. 380 
Oft, too, before a storm the stars of night 
Shoot through the sky athwart, their trail of light, 
Then straws and leaves will volitate in air, 
And feathers scud upon the waters clear: 
Then when rude Boreas lightens at the pole, 385 

And Zephyrus and Eurus thundering roll, 
Look to see flooded ditches, flooded fields, 
And mariners upfurl their soaking sails: 
Never unheralded do storms appear, 
The noisy cranes proclaim them in the air, 390 

With head aloft the heifer scents the gales, 
Around and round the lake the swallow sails, 
Frogs querulous renew their ancient tales, 
The busy ant along its narrow roads 
Carries its eggs to more secure abodes, 395 

The mighty Bow then drinks, — and filled with food 
The cawing rooks seek shelter of the wood, 



Book I. THE GEOKGICS. 19 



The birds marine and those of Asian plain 

Where levels broad Cayster's waves restrain, 

Dive, dip, and frolic in their native wave, 400 

Studious it seemeth then themselves to lave, 

The hoarse resounding partridge proclaims rain, 

And sits apart upon the arid plain, 

The damsels, plying in lamp-lighted room 

Their evening tasks with distaff and with loom, 405 

Will predicate from the explosive spark, 

Or fungus on the wick, there formed of carbon dark. 

Like heralded appear the days serene, 
When Sol bursts forth again in golden sheen ; 
The Moon almost disclaims fraternal light, 410 

Bright stars and fleecy cloud bedeck the lap of night, 
Halcyones, beloved of Thetis, roam 
With outspread pinions o'er their watery home, 
The sow unclean lies on the littered straw, 
Nor roots or tosses up the litter more, 415 

The mists descend and hang the hills among, 
The screech-owl sits and stills his noisy tongue 
The sunset watching from the turret's height ; 
Nisus, in air aloft, pursues his flight, 

c 2 



20 



THE GEORGICS. 



Book I. 



And chases Scylla for the purple hair; 420 

She flees and wings her silent flight thro' air, 
And hears with palpitating flutterings 
The retribution on his strident wings. 

Three times and four times then, with open throat 
From their high nests the rooks prolong a note, 425 
Gladness, methinks the cause, gladness to see 
Their homesteads safe and safe their progeny, 
The storm-blast overpast and safe the shady tree. 
Not that, in sooth, I think a soul divine 
Prompts the instinctive and unerring sign 430 

Teaching such creatures to foretell the day, 
Material organs enter into play, 
They sink when Jupiter sends Auster here, 
They rise beneath the rising atmosphere, 
Then fields and groves resound the song of birds, 435 
And rooks rejoicing, and the blatant herds. 

And mark the rapid Sun in daily flight, 
And mark the changing Moon that rules the night ; 
And never will their portents thee deceive, 
Despite the wiles insidious of the eve : 440 

In the new waxing moon if clouds profane 
And pale her crescent bow, it bodes for rain, 



BookI. TPIE GEORGICS. 21 

But if a virgin blush her face o'erspread, 
It will be storm, for storms make Phoebe red. 
If four days old, this signal is most sure, 445 

Her silvery horns be clear, her light be pure, 
The days that unto the next moon remain 
Will pass securely without wind or rain ; 
Then grateful mariners upon the shore, 
To Glaucus, and to Panopea, pour, 450 

And Melicerta to, their offerings vowed before. 
The Orient Sun and Couchant in the wave 
Their signs infallible and portents have, 
Aurora what, what stars of evening bring. 
If spots pollute his disc at sunrising, 455 

Or if the misty cloud his orb obscure, 
Prepare for tempest; Notus so/n will pour 
From Ocean on devoted flocks on shore. 
And if Aurora quitting Tithon's bed 
Be very pale, and if the rays o'erhead 460 

Break in directions many through the cloud, 
The tendrils of the vine will poorly shroud 
The ripened grape from the descending hail, 
'Gainst whose assault the cottage-roof may fail. 



22 THE GEOEGICS. Book I. 

Remember too the colours that arise 465 

And cross upon bis front as Phoebus dies, 
Caerulean, Rain, — the rubric, Eurus bring, 
And both at once betide the gathering 
And bursting upon earth of Wind and Rain : 
Forfend it, Fate, that I be on the main! 470 

On such a night keep mariners on shore : 
But morn returning, if his light be pure, 
Then cease to fear or clouds or stormy seas, 
And Aquilon will ride upon the breeze. 

Last sign of all, doth Hesperus foreshow 475 

The night serene when fairest breezes blow, 
And those when Auster watereth earth below ; 
The Sim foretells, and who will dare gainsay 
The Sun, that drags conspirators to day, 
Opposing secret plots and anarchy alway? 480 

Say did not he, when Caesar fell in Rome, 
Obscure his glorious head in deepest gloom, 
That man believed the reign of Night had come ? 
Did not the Earth and Seas foretell his fate, 
And dogs obscene and birds importunate? 485 

Say, did not iEtna burst and torrents pour. 
Stone liquified, Cyclopian regions o'er ? 



BookL THE GEORGJLCK. 23 

Germania heard in air the clash of arms, 

The Alpine summits quivered with alarms, 

In holy groves a Voice the silence broke, 490 

Pale sullen ghosts their sepulchres forsook, 

And cattle, sign unholy, cattle spoke ; 

Streams stood on heaps, Earth yawned, her fanes were wet 

With weeping ivory and brazen sweat;— 

Eridanus, the king of mighty floods, 495 

With rage insane invaded fields and woods, 

And swept away the homestead and the herd ; 

In holy entrails Heaven's wrath appeared, 

The fountains issued blood, the Forum rung 

With midnight wolves that raided man among, 500 

Never before so blazed the sky serene, 

And ne'er before such comets dread were seen. 

And truly was it then, Philippi saw 

The Koman legions met in mutual war, 

The Gods permitted Koman blood to stain 505 

The mounts of Haemus and Emathian plain ; 

The day will come, when on those hostile bounds 

The labourer will calmly till the grounds, 

The share upturn the pilum red with rust, 

The harrow roll the helmet filled with dust, 510 



24 THE GEOKGICS. Book 1. 

Or strike upon trie hidden sepulchre 

And give to sight the big bones buried there. 

Gods of my country, Gods indigenous, 
Thou, Mother Vesta, —Father Komulus, — 
Guardians of Tuscan Tiber and of Home, 515 

Prohibit not, unto our suffering home, 
The guardianship of him, our princely boy ; 
Enough, enough Laomedontian Troy 
Hath expiated perjury with blood; 

But Heaven, Caesar ! claims her rights withstood, 520 
And plains that here you militate so long- 
In a sad world to which all ills belong 
Midst wars and factions, right confused with wrong; 
The plough unhonoured stands, its sometime Lord 
Converts the crooked sickle to a sword; 525 

Euphrates here, Germania there doth rise, 
And neighbouring cities faith and law despise; — 
Mars, savage Mars, doth ravage the whole world. 
— Aye, like to a quadriga madly whirled, 
When fiery coursers heed nor bit nor rein 530 

Jsor voice of charioteer them seeking to restrain. 



Book II. THE GEORGICS. 25 



BOOK II. 

HO far of tillage, and celestial signs 

Pertaining thereunto, now Bacchus prompt my lines ; 
For I must sing of vineyards unto thee, 
And of the tardy growing olive-tree: 
Father Lenseus, how thy gifts surround, 5 

How the autumnal vintage ripens round — 
In flowing vats, how doth new wine abound. 
Father Lenseus come, from buskins free, 
"With naked thighs, tread out the grapes with me. 

Nature diversely prompts the growth of trees, 10 

Some rise spontaneously upon her leas, 
Some haunt the winding stream, the champaign some, 
The tribe of osiers and the wavy broom, 
The poplar, and green willow's hoary leaf: 
Some rise from seed deposited, — the chief 15 

The chesnut, and the iEsculus of Jove, 
And oak oracular of Grecian grove : 



26 THE GEORGIC'S. Book II. 

Some thrust their suckers where thick shade overwhelms, 

So propagate the cherry tribe and elms, 

So doth the young Parnassian laurel grow 20' 

Her mighty mother's fostering shade below: 

Such the priniseval laws that Nature gave, 

And orchards, woods, and groves in common have. 

But man's experience teaches other ways, 
When tender scions in the sod he lays, 25 

Or buries parent trunks, or rends in twain 
Or thrusts the sharpened branches in the plain, 
Bends and lays suckers in the soil below, 
Or cuts and plants afresh a topmost bough. 
The olive-bark (how marvellous) will shoot, 30 

The dried up bark can form itself a root: 
Engrafted stocks their foster fruit will bear, 
The ruddy apple growing on the pear, 
And stony hawthorns ruby plums can rear: 
Up therefore husbandmen and learn your craft, 35 

Amend the savage stock with better graft ; 
Let no lands idle lie, — for Ismara loves 
The Bacchant vine, Taburnus olive groves. 

And thou Maecenas, wilt thou as of yore 
Loose once again our scallop from the shore, 40 



Book II. THE GEORGICS. 27 

Spread its free sail, our object still the same, 

Thou source and worthy fountain of my fame : 

But ah ! a hundred tongues and iron throat 

Would compass not the objects of our note; 

Come then, and let us sail along the shore, 45 

And cull our simple song, without preamble more. 

The forest-trees self-planted that appear 
Tho' sterile are magnificent and fair, — 
Children of fostering Nature : — Yet if thou 
Engraft and plant them fresh, they will forego 50 

Their rugged nature, and repay thy care 
By bearing fruits, such as adapted are ; 
Nor cast away the suckers of the root, 
Plant them apart in ranks with room to shoot, 
There give them leave to bear, with leave to grow, 55 
A power they lacked their mother's shade below. 

Tardy and slow the growth of seed-sown trees, 
Yet plant their shade for grandsons if you please ; 
But fruit degenerates, — its flavour lost, 
The turpid grapes are left to birds or frost ; 60 

Labour is indispensable, and toil 
To work the stocks and suit them to the soil. 



28 THE GEOEGICS. Book II. 

But olives best from parent stems are struck, 
Vines propagated are from antique stock, 
And Paphian myrtle from wood hard as oak. 65 

From plants arise the ash and hazel-trees 
And poplar, yielding crowns for Hercules, 
Also the oak Chaonian of his Sire; 
So doth the soaring palm, the mighty fir, 
Predestined to the sea and mariner: 70 

And filberts graft upon the wild arbute ; 
And sterile plane trees bend with rosy fruit; 
The chesnut and the mountain-ash will rear 
Their whitened crests with blossoms of the pear, 
And sows may munch the glands engrafted elms may bear. 75 

Nor simple is the task to graft or bud; 
Choose a good eye, and stript from native wood, 
Slit and detach the sappy bark, and bind 
The alien bud within the foster rind: 
And for thy graft choose, free from knots, a limb 80 
And cleave it to the centre of its stem, 
Insert and wedge therein the scion good; 
Soon will new leaves spring on the parent wood, 
The trunk will mark its foliage unknown, 
And marvel at the apples not its own. 85 



Book II. THE GEORGICS. 29 

And species differ also in themselves ; 
The willow tribe, the lotus, mighty elms, 
And cypresses Idsean; olives dun 
Fruits differing in form and worth put on, 
Eound, oblong, bitter berried Pausian ; 9( > 

So too the pears of groves Alcinoan, 
Crustuman, Voleman and Syrian. 
Nor are the grapes that hang upon our boughs 
Like Methymnsean grapes which Lesbos grows ; 
Thasian, and Mareotidan are white, 95 

These love a heavy soil and those a light, 
Psythian good for conserve, Lageos fit 
To bind the foot and tongue and loose the wit : 
Purple and golden hued : and altho' fain, 
How shall I speak the praise of Ehetian, 100 

Unequal yet to vats Falernian ? 
Sound is the juice of Amminean vine, 
And sound the Tmolan and Phansean wine, 
And fruitful are the vines that Argos bears 
More gushing juice enduring longer years, 105 

Bumastan grapes let me not pass by, 
And Khodian grateful unto Gods on high ; 



30 THE GEOEGICS. Book II. 



But every species and their names to tell, 

Or e'en to number them, you may as well 

Go count the sands upon the Lybian shore, 110 

Or number every billow that doth roar 

On the Ionian Sea whilst Eurus hovereth o'er. 

Nor will all soils bear every sort of tree; 
Willows by brooks, alders in marshes see, 
The sterile ash the mountain-top approves, 115 

The myrtle the delicious sea-shore loves, 
Bacchus, the free and open hill doth hold, 
And the yew thrives with Aquilon and cold. 
View the wide world and races maint of man 
From picted G-elon to Arabian, 120 

How every clime hath its especial tree : 
India alone hath sable ebony, 
Sabseans only frankincense possess ; 
One from its odorous plant doth balsam press, 
One berries of acanthus ever green, 125 

Groves Ethiopian white with wool are seen, 
And Seres, whence they cull the silken sheen. 
Or of those mightier groves of India 
Where giant monsters tower in the air, 






Book II. THE GEORGICS. 31 



Soaring above the arrow's highest flight, 130 

Albeit Indians with the bow are wyght. 

And Media hath a tree of acrid juice 
Unfavoured in its flavour, not its use, — 
For when the step-dame doth with charm infuse 
And words unholy, magic drugs she brews, 135 

Poison and magic doth it neutralize, — 
Like to a laurel 'tis in form and size, 
And an' it were not for its deep perfume 
A laurel it would seem in leaf and gloom, 
Strong in its leaf, the blossom buds beneath; 140 

It sweetens and it fortifies man's breath. 

But neither Median groves, — rich tho' they are, 
Nor Ganges self, comparison can bear, 
Nor Hernius turbid with his golden sand, 
Italia with, — our own best native land : 145 

Nor Bactrianan lands, nor Indian, 
Nor incense-bearing sands Panchaian : 
No fire bulls,— or Hydra seed is here, 
No crops of mailed and helmed men appear, 
But golden harvests, juice of Massicus, 150 

Olives and herds and flocks abound for us : 



32 THE GEOEGICS. . Book II. 

The warlike steed breathes his defiant sound, 

Clitnmnns rears his milk-white herd around, 

Bathed in whose holy stream, the fairest beast 

Is culled the victim for the sacred feast 155 

On Roman holy and triumphant days ; 

In spring perpetual, balmy Zephyr plays, 

Twice do our flocks produce and twice we strip our trees ; 

Lions and rabid tigers are unknown, 

The root of aconite deceiveth none, 160 

Nor horrible the serpents we behold 

Wending their crooked way or couched in spiral fold. 

And add to these our cities, — citadels 
Pight upon rocks escarped, and antique walls 
'Neath which so many noble rivers flow ; 165 

And add our double seas, above, below; 
Lakes, — Larus Maximus, Benacus proud, 
The Lucrine port, which moles from Ocean shroud, 
Or Julian, where the Tuscan wave invades 
The bounds Avernan, and its sacred shades; 170 

And our rich mines of silver and of brass, 
And gold thence gathered in its solid mass: 
And races stern of man, the Marsian, 
Sabellan youth, and strong Ligurian, 



Book II. THE GEORGICS. 33 

And Volscian javelined ; — from hence arose 175 

The Decii, Marii, the Scipios 

The great Marcelli, and Caesar, thou — 

Who on the verge of Asia even now 

Dost chase from Roman bounds the Indian foe : 

Hail ! and all hail ! thou land Saturnian, 180 

Thou mighty parent both of fruits and man; 

Fain would my song applaud the Arts divine, 

Now for long years pre-eminently thine; 

Fain would my foot reseek the sacred spring 

And in Ascrsean strains to Roman people sing. 185 

Now for the local genius of the fields, 
Strength, colour, all that boundless Nature yields ; 
First, the rough ground malignant hills among 
Where the thin clay with rock and scrub is hung, 
There the Palladian olive plant will grow ; 190 

The oleaster native there doth show 
The spot by scattered berries strewed below. 
But where the soil is rich and moist the ground 
Thick grasses and fertility abound, 
Such as the detritus that valleys fills 195 

Deposited by rivers from the hills; 

D 



34 THE GEORGICS. Book II. 

And also on the pleasant southern brow, 

That feeds the fern detested by the plongh, 

With strength exuberant, there vines will grow 

The Bacchant grape, whence rich libations flow. 200 

Such as from golden paterae we pour, 

When the fat Tyrrhene sounds the fanes before, 

And entrail fumes from bending chargers soar. 

But if it please thee flocks and herds to rear, 
Or if the browzing goat should be thy care, 205 

Seek you the glades Tarentum of afar ; 
Or the lost fields of hapless Mantua, 
Where graceful swans upon the floods abound, 
And springs perennial feed the verdure round, 
Where all the herd consumes on longest days 210 

The gelid dew of shortest nights repays. 

If black the soil or greasy, where the share 
Hath cleft the furrow, if the surface there 
Be crumbled mould, and ploughing makes it so, 
There sow the Cereal crop, the oxen slow 215 

Shall drag a groaning wain as homeward bent they go. 
And where the indignant husbandman with axe 
The unproductive scrub or wood attacks, 



Book II. THE GEOKGICS. 35 



Grubs up its roots, and from their ancient home 
Sends exiled forth the feathered tribes to roam, 220 

Where glisten from the share flat clods of loam. 

And for the hot and hungry gravel lea, 
Which scarcely grows wild thyme to feast the bee, 
Rough tophus rock — chalk hollowed by the snake 
Such lands grow poisons in their rugged brake, 225 

The serpent tribe feed there, and habitations make. 

And where the morning mist doth lightly lie, 
Which drinks at eve, and at noonday is dry, 
Lands which are vestured in eternal green 
No rusting salt, — or hurtling rock there seen, 230 

There plant the elm and twine the joyful vine ; 
Plant olives, — sow with grain, or flocks assign, 
Such land is good for all, corn, oil and wine : 
Such land hath Capua, — Vesuvius such, 
And Clanius with its floods, troubling Acerrse much. 235 

And now to tell thee how the land to prove, 
And whether light or heavy it will move, 
For Ceres loves the heavy, Bacchus light : 
First choose a likely spot judged by the sight 
And dig a deep pit in unbroken soil, 240 

Then shovel back the earth and tread and moil, 

d 2 



36 THE GEOEGICS. Book II. 

If insufficient to refill the pit, 

'Tis light, for pasturage or vineyard fit ; 

But if the heavy clods redundant are 

'Tis Cereal soil and fitter for the share, 245 

Gro yoke thy strongest team and speed it there. 

Salt spots there be, and many a bitter plot 
Hostile to fruits, — the plough amends such not; 
There vines change kind and apples lose their name, 
Behold the method how to prove the same ; 250 

Take from thy smoky roof the colander 
Which since it strained the grape hangs idly there, 
Put earth therein and waters pure to pass 
To grapple with and percolate its mass, 
The saturated drop to taste betrays, 255 

And man's long face the nausea bewrays. 
Lastly, if land be rich, we prove it so 
The more we knead, the denser will it grow 
Adhesive like to pitch and dump as dough. 

Moist lands grow freely, oft too freely grow, 260 

Far be from mine such vigour, lest it show 
In rank luxuriance of empty straw : 
Upon the weight of land I say no more 
Heavy and light self-manifested are : 



Book II. THE GEORGICS. 37 



Colour the same, is to the eyesight clear ; 265 

Not so the native cold oft latent there, 
Shown by the firs and noxious yews thereon, 
And by the black and spreading ivy known. 

Forewarned by these, to meliorate the land 
Heaped up in furrows let the masses stand, 270 

That Aquilon may pulverize the clod, 
Or 'ere you subject vine-plants to the sod : 
Soil pulverized is best, plough deep and trust 
The winds and frosts to aid the arm robust. 
Some husbandmen affect extremer care, 275 

And plant and transplant on sites similar, 
And lest the orphaned plant its mother rue, 
Remove to soil like that wherein it grew ; 
Some score the bark towards the mid-clay sun, 
Replanting that its rays may fall thereon ; 280 

Such force hath custom tender plants upon. 

And ere you plant your vines consider well 
The properties of valley, hill, and dell : 
If the field fertile be, plant thick and close, 
And Bacchus undefrauded will not lose ; 285 

Quadrate in rows upon a sudden rise, 
But careful be each space to equalize, 



38 THE GEOBGICS. Book II. 

In ranks symmetrical thy plants dispose; 

As in the battle-field the legion throws 

Its cohorts widely stationed o'er the plain, 290 

Where war in its magnificence doth reign, 

Or ere they knell the onset with alarms, 

And Mars uncertain stalks betwixt contending arms. 

Nor deem such order merely meant to please 

The vacant eye of luxury and ease, 295 

But to allot each plant its equal share 

Of mother earth and vivifying air. 

What depth to delve the soil dost thou divine ? 
A simple furrow will suffice the vine, 
But delve far deeper for the forest-tree; 300 

The iEsculus in chief — for deeply he, 
High as in air above his branches shoot, 
Strikes to the depths of Tartarus his root ; 
And therefore 'tis the winter blasts and rain, 
Accumulating years, assault in vain ; 305 

Man's generations, ages pass away, 
Still sturdily the forest-lord stands he 
In his own shade and self-dependency. 

Face not thy vineyard to the setting sun, 
Nor mingle hazel-nuts the vines among ; 310 



Book II. THE GEORGICS. 39 

Cut scions near the root, such love they feel 

For Mother Earth, nor rasp with blunted steel, 

Plant not the vines sylvestrian olives near, 

For oft the careless shepherd folding there 

Doth fire all unawares the unctuous bark, 315 

A little while, flames kindle from the spark 

Eavage and raid below with tumult loud 

And Heaven itself assail with pitchy cloud ; 

And should it happen that the north wind rage, 

Kedoubled strife doth fire and tempest wage, 320 

All perish then, incurable the wound, 

Charred roots and desolation lie around, 

Till the wild olive reassumes its ground. 

Let no persuasion move to plough or sow 

The rigid earth whilst Boreas rude cloth blow, 325 

Cast not away together seed and toil 

On frozen and impenetrable soil ; 

Best season for such task, the rosy spring, 

When the white birds, destroying snakes, take wing ; 

The next when hoar-frost summer heats succeeds, 330 

And Sol begins to curb his rampant steeds. 

O springtide sweet, when trees resume their sheen, 
springtide sweet, when earth again is green, 



40 THE GEOEGICS. Book II. 

When Jove descends in showers to repose 

Upon the lap of Earth his happy spouse; 335 

The Sire Etherial and the Mother Earth 

Commingling to produce the springtide's birth: 

Love reigns below, bewrayed in songs of birds, 

And gambollings of wanton flocks and herds ; 

Love rules the fruitful field, by Zephyr pressed, 340 

She opes to him the secret of her breast ; 

Dews shed fertility, and herbs abound 

Beneath the newborn Sun they blossom round ; 

The Bacchant vine, her summer garb puts on, 

Nor longer dreads Auster or Aquilon. 345 

E'en such methinks was that primaeval tide, 
Or ere the days to seasons were allied, 
'Twas ever Spring, and Spring o'er all the world : 
No wintry blasts were then by Eurus hurled; 
When, Iron progeny of flinty ground, 350 

Man, head erect, first cast his gaze around; 
When cattle filled the field, and beasts the grove, 
And the stars garnished the fair vault above; 
For early Nature needed such an hour 
For the infirm and unestablished power, 355 

Unequal yet to bear her sun and shower. 



Book II. THE GEORGICS. 41 

But to return, where'er you plant the vine 
Cast in manure, and heap around the bine, 
And bury porous stone, and shells marine, 
And let the waters percolate between 360 

Imparting air and vigour to the roots: 
And some there be protect the scion shoots 
With stone and broken pottery, to shield, 
Should rain immoderate o'erflood the field, 
Or sultry Sirius need to be repelled. 365 

And round the sets still reinstate the soil, 
And work it well with hoes, and spare no toil, 
Subject each alley to the cleansing share, 
And lunge the stalwart oxen here and there; 
Tie the light tendrils to peeled withes and reeds, 370 
And forks and ashen poles the fabric needs; 
Soon will they gather strength to scorn the breeze, 
And clamber to the summits of the trees. 
But whilst the plant is young forbear to prune, 
Let them lash out, nor use the knife too soon; 375 

But pinch the prurient buds off with the hand, 
And when the sturdy fold and solid band 
Entwines the elm-tree, then away with fear, 
Assume the pruning-hook and do not spare, 



42 THE GEOKGICS. Book II. 

But with tyrannic empire lop away 380 

Superfluous branches and redundant spray. 

Weave fences well, and keep all cattle out, 
Especially when first the tendrils sprout, 
More damage oft is done, more fruit is lost 
By ox or nibbling goat, than heat or frost ; 385 

Sheep browze and greedy heifers them consume ; 
Winter's hard ice inflicts not direr doom, 
Nor the hot ray on the unsheltered rock 
Than is inflicted by the raiding flock, 
Whose venomed tooth corrodes the wounded stock. 390 
'Twas for no other fault the goat was slain 
To Bacchus, by all nations, at his fane, 
When ancient games first instituted were, 
Enacted by the mimes in theatre. 

Then the Theseidse this prize bestowed 395 

At every village and at each cross-road, 
Whilst that the riotous and happy swain 
Leaped on the unctuous skin, or rolled upon the plain. 

And still Ausonian colonists rehearse, 
Deduced from Troy, the incoherent verse, 400 

With faces masked they shouting pass along, 
Invoking Bacchus in their joyful song; 



Book II. THE GEORGICS. 43 

His pendant image to the pine they brace, 

And wheresoe'er he turns his honest face, 

Upon the hill-side or the valley's shade, 405 

It pours fertility on grove and glade : 

Therefore with reason we in patriot lays 

Invoke his Godhead and resound his praise, 

Therefore with reason we the chargers bear 

And cakes of oil and honey'd meal prepare, 410 

Drag by the horn the victim to the God, 

And toast his entrails on the hazel-rod. 

Another toil besets the husbandman 
And tasks his energies, do what he can, 
Three times and four times in the year to plough 415 
And pulverize with the eternal hoe: 
Another endless labour is to prune; 
The daily tasks in a full orbit run, 
And the year ends where erst the year begun. 
E'en when the last autumnal leaf is gone, 420 

And sylvan beauties yield to Aquilon, 
The swain anticipates the future year ; 
With crooked falx of Saturn see him there 
Pruning his vines and chast'ning them to bear. 
Be first to dig and delve, and rubbish burn 425 

And props and poles into the hoard return ; 



44 THE GEORGICS. Book II. 

Be last to harvest: twice umbrageous shade, 

And twice relentless weeds the vines invade ; 

The task is arduous, many acres charm, 

Be wise, and cultivate a smaller farm : 430 

Hunt up the woods for holly, gather reeds, 

And strip the native withies on the meads, 

When vines are twined and pruning-knives repose, 

And when the wearied dresser whistling goes : 

Still, still the soil demands the hoe and share, 435 

And still the gushing grape dreads Jupiter. 

The olive, on the other hand, demands 
Nor pruning-knife nor cultivated lands ; 
The hardy plant, which once has taken root, 
Asks but one ploughing to ensure the fruit, 440 

Self-nourished in the earth and air they stand, 
Emblem of Peace and fatness of the land. 

The fruit-trees also on their valid stems 
Assert the innate vigour of their limbs, 
Their branching heads to Heaven they spread and span, 445 
Nor ask assistance at the hand of man. 
Nor doth the savage forest fruitless lie, 
Wild berries blush on every aviary ; 



Book II. THE GEORGICS. 45 

We browze its cytisus, we rend its fir 

For torch-light and nocturnal labourer. 450 

And doth man doubt but that he ought to toil? 

Ask not of vines, or olives fat with oil, 

Ask of the humble willow and the broom 

Food for the flock and shelter for the groom, 

And hedge-row unto bees affording honey'd bloom. 455 

Fair is the box on Cytoreian dales, 

Fair is the pine-tree in Narician vales, 

Fair is the native heath that never knew 

The hand of man, or felt the biting plough ; 

Fair are the sterile peaks of Caucasus, 460 

Where Eurus reigns with wrath assiduous, 

They yield the mighty fir-tree to the flood, 

And cypress to the hall, and cedar-wood, 

The spokes and fellies of the wheels there grow, 

And there they fabricate the upcurved prow. 465 

Elm-trees yield fodder, willow osiers bears, 
The myrtle darts, the cornel hafts of spears, 
Bends to a bow the Ityraean yew, 
And fashioned by the lathe alike we hew 
Light lime, and heavy box with biting steel ; 470 

On Padan waters floats the alder keel, 



46 THE GEORGICS. Book II. 

In ancient holms the bees a shelter find, 

Or hive within the hollow cortex rind. 

O Bacchus! thy good gifts when rightly used 

Cannot compare with these; but when abused 475 

'Twas then they gave to Fate the Centaur crew, 

Their craters at the Lapithse they threw, 

Who, Pholus, Khoetus, and Hylseus, slew. 

happy, far too happy — did ye wot, 
Ye rustic swains, the blessings of your lot ; 480 

Eemote from war, by labour ye are fed, 
And the impartial Earth, with daily bread ; 
What though no folding gates expanding wide 
Admit of morning worshippers the tide, 
No arch or posts triumphal guard that pass, 485 

Thronged with gold vestments, Ephyreian brass, 
Though dyes Assyrian none your vestments soil, 
Nor cassia-scent corrupt your limpid oil; 
Yet, rest secure, and days devoid of strife, 
And rustic riches, innocence of life, 490 

The cave, the lake sequestered, lowing kine, 
Some Tempo's shade, and sleep beneath the pine, 
All these are yours ; and in the forest-dell 
To track the lair of beasts therein that dwell ; 



Book II. THE GEOKGICS. 47 

Your boys robust and frugal, full of fire, 495 

Obedient to the Gods and to their sire, — 

Astra?a when she fled to Heaven, or ere 

She quitted Earth, left her last footmark here. 

And ye sister Muses, whom I love 
With sacred fervour all the world above, 500 

O take me for your Seer ; give me to know 
The ways of Heaven above and Earth below, 
The paths sidereal and the Moon's new birth, 
The Sun's eclipses, and the throes of Earth, 
And by what force it is the rising tide 505 

O'erflows the marsh, or how its waves subside ; 
Why Sol in winter hurries to his rest, 
And by what laws are summer-nights comprest ; 
But if the mortal pulse and frigid flow 
Prohibit man such mysteries to know, 510 

Then let me haunt the rivers and the floods, 
The peaceful though inglorious fields and woods, 
Or of Taygetus and Spartan maids, 
Or of Sperchius and Thessalian glades, 
Or where the frigid peaks of Heemus soar, 515 

Its calm retreats and wooded valleys o'er. 



48 THE GEOEGICS. Book II. 

O happy is the man who may discern 
The cause of all that irks the heart to yearn; 
He fears not, he, inexorable fate, 

Nor Acherontine waves, insatiate; 520 

And fortunate is he who may behold 
The rustic Gods, — Pan and Sylvanus old, 
And sisterhood of Nymphs ; — alike to him 
The Fasces and barbaric diadem : 

No more fraternal rage at home alarms 525 

Than the far Dacian federate in arms ; 
He knows not poverty, nor envies pelf 
Of bankrupt nations or of Eoman wealth ; 
He gathers in the produce of his fields, 
What an all-kind and bounteous Nature yields, 530 

And never heard the noisy Forum's roar, 
And never read the Tables of the Law. 

Some rush to sea, some where the battle rings, 
Some penetrate the halls and floors of kings ; 
Some towns and villages in ruin steep 535 

In gems to drink, in Tyrian purple sleep ; 
One buries gold and couches it upon ; 
Another stuns the tribune with his tongue; 



Book II. THE GEOKGIOS. 49 

One the Proscenium treads and, above all, 

Affects the plaudits of its great and small ; 540 

One steeps in kindred blood his guilty hand, 

And flees an outcast to some foreign land ; 

The rustic wrestles only with the soil, 

His country reaps the first fruits of his toil, 

He feeds his household and deserving steer 545 

And fatted herd, from the abounding year ; 

No rest allowed, in quick succession come, 

The flock in labour and the harvest-home, 

Gathering of fruit, manuring of the soil, 

Crushing the Sicyonian gland for oil ; 550 

Woods yield their fruits, grapes ripen on the wall, 

And grunting swine munch acorns where they fall. 

Meantime his children clamber for his kiss, 
And chastity assures domestic bliss ; 
His kine afford exuberance of food, 555 

And his kids fatten in their wanton mood; 
He keeps the holydays, stretched on the ground 
He lights his pyre, with crater ivy-bound ; 
Libations to Lenseus there he sheds, 
Invoking him; — the while the shepherd lads, 560 

E 



50 THE GEOKGICS. Book II. 

Bare their big limbs to wrestle on the plain, 

Or poise the dart in list agrestian : 

Such was the life the ancient Sabines knew, 

Snch Komulus and Kemns; — Etruria grew, 

And Rome e'en so became the chief of all, 565 

Her seven hills encircled with one wall : 

Snch prior was to the Dictaean reign, 

Before nnholy feasts on oxen slain, 

In golden age and days Saturnian ; 

Or ere the brazen trumpet rung alar'ms, 570 

Or ere the anvil forged unholy arms. 

Lo! now the space we've galloped at full speed, 
Now from the collar free the smoking steed. 




Book III. THE GBORGIOS. 51 



BOOK III. 

rr^HOU too, great Pales, aucl thou renowned 

Amphrysian shepherd! shall the song resound, 
With woods and streams of the Lycsean ground: 
For every other tuneful theme of song 
Hath suffered iteration loud and long ; 5 

Who hath not of the dire Eurystheus heard, 
Or hates Busiris not and altars weird, 
Hylas the boy, who hath not heard of him, 
Of Pelops and far-famed eburnian limb, 
Hippodamia, and race lost and won, 10 

And floating Delos, — Isle Latonian! 
Untrodden yet the path and trackless way 
Whereby I fain would soar to brighter day ; 
O may I be the first to cease to roam, 
To lead Aonian muses to my home, 15 

Boast Mantuan, and not Idumean palms ; 
And where our noble Mincius spreads his arms, 

e 2 



52 THE GEORGICS. Book III. 

To build the pillared dome and marble fane 
To crown his willowed banks and verdant plain. 

In robe of triumph bright with Tyrian dye 20 

There shall our Caesar stand, the deity ; 
Quadrigas there, a hundred, shall contend, 
Greece, the Alphaeus quitting, thither wend, 
And combatants shall there crude caestus don, 
And race, as erst in grove Molorchion. 25 

There, crowned with olive garland, may I stand 
And victors take their laurels from my hand; 
There lead the slow procession to the fane, 
And view the victims on the altar slain ; 
Or in the Theatre confront the scene 30 

Painted whereon are captive Britons seen; 
In gold and ivory above whose doors 
Are shown Gargaridan and Eoman wars, 
The bounding fleets where mighty Nilus flows, 
With rising columns girt with brazen prows, 35 

The Asian cities, — conquered Niphates, 
The Parthian backward shooting as he flees, 
And duplicated trophies on each hand 
Recording triumphs over either land. 



Book III. THE GEORGICS. 53 

There emulating life, in Parian stone, 40 

The offspring of Assaracus be shown, 

Names that descended are from Jove and Tros, 

And Troy's immortal builder Cynthius ; 

And there shall Envy sit abashed, and seem 

To watch the Furies and Cocytus' stream, 45 

The twisted serpents, and Ixion thrown 

The whirling wheel around ; and never-resting stone. 

But now Maecenas, let us now invade 
The Dryad forest and the Dryad glade 
Untrodden yet, — Thy precepts we obey 50 

And follow as thy spirit prompts the way. 
Up and away, Cithseron opes her throat, 
Taygetus re-echoes the dogs' note, 
Equestrian Epidaurus on the main 

Takes up the echo and prolongs the strain ; 55 

Soon must we boun' us for a loftier song, 
Of deeds that unto Caesar's wars belong, 
To times remote transmit the laurelled page, 
Far, far remote, as ours from Tithon's age. 

Ye who breed coursers for Olympic palms, 60 

And ye who rear strong oxen for our farms, 



54 THE GEOKGICS. Book III. 

Select for mothers those of choicest frame : 

These points become the ruminating dame, 

Broad shoulders, heavy head, and low'ring eyes, 

And dewlap from the muzzle to the thighs, 65 

Huge depth of flank, huge — even to the feet, 

E'en hairy ears, and crumpled horns are meet ; 

The mottled-white bespotted cow we prize 

That butts with vigour and the yoke defies, 

With forehead like the bulls, and head erect 70 

And tail depending to the ground bedeckt : 

At four years old she bears Lucina's throes, 

At ten the years of Hymenseals close, 

Unfit too for the yoke let her in age repose : 

Meantime let her enjoy the fleeting space, 75 

And fill thy stalls with her selected race. 

For ah how fleetly speeds the little span 

Of lusty youth allowed to mortal man, 

Diseases grow, age comes, and joys decay, 

Till death demands his miserable prey. 80 

Keplenish still thy stalls with stock preferred, 

And draft the beeves and heifers from the herd. 

The courser too demands, of him who rears, 
Freedom from labour from his earliest years. 



Book III. THE GEOKGICS. 55 

The generous colt walks with a head elate, 85 

And treads the sod with proud but supple gait, 

Undaunted leads the way, — unchecked will brave 

The bridge unknown or breast the torrent wave ; 

The elements for him no terrors have. 

With crested neck, and fine and slender head, 90 

Short bodied, back with muscle broadly spread, 

In equal brawn his proud and dauntless breast, 

And colour — gray or chesnut are the best, 

Not white or dun : — then if he hears afar 

The clanging trumpet or the din of war, 95 

He pricks his ears, he quivers at the sound, 

With fire ypent he neighs and paws the ground ; 

On his right shoulder falls the heavy mane, 

His solid hoof smites the resounding plain, 

The bulging loins — his double spine retain. 100 

Such steed the Amyclsean Pollux bore 
Hight Cy liar us, and known in Grecian lore. 
Such in his rushing Biga Mars restrained ; 
Such' in his battle car Achilles reined; 
Yea e'en in such a form did Saturn fly 105 

Surprised by Rhea, in his gallantry ; 



56 



THE GEORGICS. 



Book III. 



With flowing inane he scuttled o'er the ground, 
And Pelio- echoed to his nostrils' sound. 

Should years or sickness the good steed depress, 
House him thy stall within, nor tend him less: 110 

Useless in feat of love, or feat of war, 
He fires in age like flame in wisp of straw, 
A sudden burst of inane flame, — no more : 
Be careful then to mark their age and race, 
Their courage in their antecedents trace, 115 

Their grief when overcome, — their glory at the palm : 
Dost thou not see how emulation warm 
Enflames the breasts of young competitors 
When in the lists the bounding car appears, 
How, hopes elate and fears depress the heart, 120 

How, slackened reins and twisted thongs, they start 
With fervent speed their headlong coursers fly, 
The chariot sinking low and bounding high; 
Now midway borne aloft 'twfxt earth and air, 
Onward they speed, on in the fierce career, 125 

Thro' clouds of sand and scattered foam they hie, 
Such love of praise and strife for victory. 

'Twas Erichthonius first conjoined the four y 
And rode triumphant on the rapid car : 



Book III. THE GEORGICS. 57 

The Peletlironian Lapithse, more late 130 

Constrained the steed to bear the warrior's weight, 

And reined him at full speed or maneged him for state. 

The task is equal, both alike demand 

Courage and skill, and magisterial hand. 

Youth, youth is indispensable, altho' 135 

The veteran ne'er turned him from a foe, 

Tho' from Epirus or Mycense sprung, 

Or ranking Neptune's progeny among. 

Forearmed on these points, in the genial tide 
Feed up the future bridegroom of the bride, 140 

Herbs succulent and waters to his will, 
And corn to boot, to eat and drink his fill, 
Nor let the progeny decline in fire 
Degenerate, beneath a fasting sire, 

Not so the mother mares, — deny to them 145 

Their wonted fodder and pellucid stream, — 
Urge them to panting speed beneath the sun 
^*- When the piled threshing-floor he shines upon ; 
Nor suffer sloth and indolence to foil 
The native vigour of a genial soil. 150 

But then reverse the fodder and the fare, 
Dismiss the sire from thought and tend the mare ; 



58 



THE GEOKGICS. 



Book III. 



Thro' her appointed months, no work be done, 

No yoking to the wain, no courses run, 

No leaping dykes and ditches, breaking bounds, 155 

Swimming of floods, or scucldings over grounds ; 

But by the brooks in forest glade to feed, 

To lie on mossy bed in fragrant weed, 

With cave of rock to shelter in at need. 

The groves of Silarus, oaks evergreen 160 

That fringe the banks Alburnus flows between, 
A flying pest them haunts, — in Roman fame 
Asilus hight, CEstros the Grecian name. 
Rough and harsh buzzing, when the herds it hear 
They flee amain, and bellowing in fear 165 

Startle the Avoods and banks of Tanager: 
'Twas Juno sent this pestilence on us 
Embittered 'gainst the child of Inachus; 
During the midday heats they noisome are, 
So feed 'neath morning grey or 'neath the ev'ning star. 170 

The parturition over, tend the young, t 
And brand the name and race from whence they sprung : 
Mark those you destine at the Fanes to bleed, 
Mark and select those you design for breed, 



Book III. THE GEORGICS. 59 

Mark those for toil, to labour at the plough, L75 

The rest that form the herd let feed and grow. 

Now for the drudging ox : ye that take 
Pleasure and pains agrarian teams to break, 
Whilst they are young and docile let them know 
To bear the yoke, the task to undergo : 180 

With a loose collar of enwreathed vine 
Subject their necks, and soon as they resign 
To such light servitude, then yoke a brace, 
And teach them to progress with equal pace, 
Then yoke them to the light revolving wheel 185 

To follow with a weight they scarcely feel. 
Next to the axles of the loaded wain 
And with the pole and collar them constrain, 
But meantime feed them well, not grass alone, 
Or leaves of willow, or the sedge marsh grown, 190 

Nor as our sires, of mother's milk defraud, 
But give them corn, corn from the garnered hoard. 

And if your views be martial, if you breed 
The snorting courser or the swifter steed 
To challenge bays Pisaean in the grove 195 

Alphams of, and of Olympic Jove, 



60 THE GEORGICS. Book III. 

Accustom them betimes to pomps of war, 

The clanging trumpet and the rumbling car; 

Let them in stall the clang of armour hear, 

And to its pomp accustom eye and ear ; 200 

Then let them learn their master's voice to know, 

And arch the neck to his applausive blow ; 

And when the mother mare her dug denies, 

Or ere in wanton confidence he hies, 

Subject betimes his mouth to bit and rein ; — 205 

And when the summer fourth he shall attain 

Let him essay the course, and pace around 

With step alternate and responsive sound : 

Next urge him to his speed with easy hand 

When scouring earth he hardly scars the sand. 210 

So hyperborean Aquilon e'en so 

Drives arid clouds from realms of Scythian snow, 

The corn lies low, the reeds and rushes quake, 

The forests groan, the surging billows break, 

As over sea, o'er land he leaves a wasted wake. 215 

To win Elean bays such steed is fit, 

Proud in his froth and foam and bloodied bit, 

But for the din of battle fitter far, 

With prouder neck yoked to the Belgic car: 



Book III. THE GEOKGICS. 61 

Pamper him not, till he be fully broke, 220 

The full conditioned courser spurns the yoke, 
But when amenable to whip and rein 
Feed to the full and urge his pride again. 
And, Oh of love beware, avert the flame 
Of Venus, sore enfeebler of the frame; 225 

And whether it be steed or whether steer 
The wanton herd he never must come near ; 
A mountain barrier, or flood oppose 
Or with high fence his feeding place enclose ; 
An' if he see the fair one he will burn, 230 

Forget his food, his once loved meadows scorn, 
And pine e'en so : — The gentle heifer strays 
And crops with careless step the forest braes, 
The whilst the rivals madden at the sight, 
And rush to headstrong and determined fight, 235 

Horn grapples horn, and blow encounters blow, 
Their flanks are gored, the tides of black blood flow, 
They give and they receive the mighty wound, 
Olympus, and the Sylvans echoing round. 
Nor will they feed or herd together more; 240 

The vanquished seeks some lone untrodden shore, 



62 THE GEORGICS. Book III. 

There mourns his ignominy, — nurtures hate, 

Kemembers his lost love and fallen state ; 

He goes, — but casts behind a lingering look, 

Beneath the blast he couches on the rock, 245 

On thorny pasture and on scrub he feeds, 

Stalwart he grows, and confidence succeeds ; 

His newborn strength he tries, against a tree 

He rushes as against his enemy, 

Lashing the wind, spurning the yellow sand, 250 

From banishment, — on the paternal land 

He and the foe unwary meet again : — 

So gathering rolls the billow of the main, 

A streak of foam afar, — a streak no more, 

It gathers in its course, it rolls on shore, 255 

It dashes on the rock, — it bursts in spray, 

Black sand and eddying surge its wanton force bewray. 

Ay, all that breathe the breath of life yprove 
Alike, the unresisted fire of love : 

Man, beast, the aqueous tribe, the lowing herds, 260 
And denizens of air, the painted birds; 
The tawny lioness forsakes her den, 
Forsakes her cubs, and dares the haunts of men : 






Book III. THE GEORGICS. G3 

Then do the bear uncouth, the savage boar, 

And tigress, most relentless, rage and roar, 265 

Fearful the sound to the awakened ear, 

On Lybian wastes, of the lone traveller! 

Behold the steed, how he with fervour glows; 

Deem you, he'll heed of man the bit or blows ? 

Nor rocks, nor precipice, nor torrent's force 270 

Shall bourn his headlong and resistless course ; 

See the Sabelline swine, — in lair aloof 

He furbishes his tusks, his hide and hoof. 

And puts his rival's clumsy strength to proof: 

See man in youth impetuous, 'tis the same, 275 

When his young spirit feels the ruthless flame 

He heeds not then the storm or tempest's power, 

The surging billow or the midnight hour, 

He breasts the flood, nor deems of mother's sighs, 

Or maiden dying when her lover dies. 280 

So doth the spotted lynx of Bacchus rave, 
Wolves, dogs, unwarlike deer, like transports have, 
But most of all the mare, so Venus willed 
At Potnia, when was overturned and killed 
Glaucus, their lord, by his quadriga's mares. 285 

They swim the flood, burst mountain barriers, 



64 THE GEORGICS. Book III. 

Mount Gargarus, and Ascanius' flood; 

And when the spring returning heats their blood, 

They turn to Zephyrus, on rocks they stand, 

And intercept the breeze, and thereby fanned, 290 

(Tho' hardly credible) they gravid grow, 

And pangs maternal without wedlock know; 

Then o'er the rocks and thro' the valleys flee, 

Not Zephyrus nor Eurus, unto ye — 

To realms where Boreas or rough Caurus reigns, 295 

Or foggy Auster puffing wind and rains ; 

There they distil Hippomanes, of power 

To aid the stepdame in her evil hour, 

With charm and drug of baneful herb and flower : 

But onward, onward, whilst we chant of love 300 

Doth unrespective Time in onward silence move. 

Enough of herds, remaineth now to note 
The woolly breeding sheep and hoary goat : 
Toil, but much gain, they yield ye, colonists. 
Ah me, ah me, such simple subject lists 305 

Expressions apt for honours meetly due: 
But now Parnassus rises to my view, 
Its rocky summits open to my ken, 
Oh let me climb a path unknown to men, 



Book III. THE GEORGICS. 05 

And drink Castalian waters from the spring 310 

Now, Alma Pales now, instruct thy Seer to sing. 

Keep in the first place all the sheep in fold, 
And feed them well pending the frost and cold ; 
Spare not the litter, give them sheaves of straw, 
And guard from murrain, rot, and mornings raw. 315 
Next for the goats, for them let leafy food 
And living waters daily be renewed; 
Fold to the southern sun, and fence the rear 
When cold Aquarius concludes the year. 
What tho' these last yield not such rich supply 320 
Of fleece Milesian steeped in Tyrian dye, 
Yet well do they repay an equal care 
In larger offspring and more milky ware ; 
Exuberant the store the goat bestows, 
The more you milk the more her udder flows; 325 

And well the camp, and well the sailors know, 
Cinyphean wares, and comforts they bestow. 
They haunt Lycsean heights, crop scanty fare 
From woods and scrub and rocks that desert are ; 
At evenfall, with strutting dugs they come 330 

And lead instinctively their young ones home, 

F 



66 THE GEORGICS. Book III. 

And tho' they prescience lack, man's hand supplies 

The plenty their improvidence denies, 

Supplies them arbutus in sheltered fold, 

And opes the granary in frost and cold. 335 

And when sweet spring returns, by zephyrs borne, 
Then lead them forth beneath the early morn, 
The sheep to meadow and the goats to grove, 
Whilst Lucifer resplendent beams above, 
Whilst sweeter by the dews of morning made 340 

The pearl-drop glistens on the tender blade. 

In the fourth hour, when the red sun rides high 
And shrill cicadse sing on every tree, 
Lead them to drink the living flood below, 
Or where thro' trough of wood fresh waters flow; 345 
Then seek the cool retreat, — the shady grove, 
Or where in mighty strength the oak of Jove 
With spreading branches shades the holy ground, 
And Ilex sheds eternal freshness round ; 
In such a glen or sacred grove take rest 350 

'Till Phoebus shine obliquely from the west, 
Then Hesperus the freshness will renew, 
Then humid night repairs exhausted dew, 



Book III. THE GEORGICS. G7 

Then on the shore the Halcyon notes resound, 

And linnets warble on each bush around. 355 

And now of Libyan shepherds, how they fare, 
And roofs Mapalian thinly scattered there ; 
By day and night for months and months they stray 
Their lonely and interminable « ay ; 
They lead the flock the bound 
And trackless plains for pasturage explore. 
The Afric roves with all his ^ round, 

His tent, his lar, with Cressan quiver bound, 
And trusty bow, and Amyclsean hound : — 
So stands the Koman soldier in his might 365 

When he dons armour in his country's right 
And falls on hostile camp in unexpected fight. 

Not so the Scythian on Maeotic strands 
Where Ister disembogues his yellow sands, 
And Khodope, descended from the Pole. 370 

Stabled in stall, the beasts receive their dole 
From hand of man, nor herb nor leaf remains 
Where hills of snow incrust the joyless plains, 
Seven cubits deep ; where winter holds his court 
And where the bitter Caurus maketh sport. 375 

F 2 



68 THE GEOKGICS. Book III. 

Sol hath no power there, — he rears his crest, 

His wearied steeds seek Oceanic rest, 

Nor mist nor cloud disperse at his behest. 

The running rivers harden as they flow, 

The waters bear the wain that bore the prow, 380 

Garments grow stiff with ice, — brass vessels break, 

Oonci be once limpid lake, 

The stroke ?s liquor from the can, 

on the beard of man, 
1 ei flocks unfolded the deep snow prevails, 385 

The oxen's mighty bulk them nought avails, 
The herded deer unused to loads succumb, 
The branching antlers now betray their tomb, 
Nor dog nor net is needed to insnare 
Nor Punic feathers fluttering him to scare: 390 

Vainly the quarry struggles in the snow, 
Vainly he strives to shun the falling blow, 
The victors' shout of joy proclaim the victim low. 
They to their deep subterrene cave retire 
And feed with unhewn trunks the mighty fire, 395 

Pass livelong nights in play, and quaff again 
Potations sour, brewed from crude fruit, or grain. 



Book III. THE GEORGICS. G9 

Beneath Triones Hyperborean 

Swept by Byphgean Eurus, clwelleth man 

In tawny skins yclad, so rude and wan. 400 

But if thine aim be wool, avoid the scrubs, 
Nor pasture amidst burrs and thorny shrubs, 
And the fat pastures shun : — in fleece of white 
Unsullied, let the patriarch ram be dight ; 
And look his mouth within, no tawny tongue, 405 

Lest sable spots be found the lambs among, 
Beject such, and select thy fairest male: 
In such a fleece, (an it be true, the tale) 
Pan, god Arcadian, captivated thee, 
Luna divine ! beneath the forest tree. 410 

And give, an if the store of milk rank first, 
Lotos and Cytisus, exciting thirst. 
The more they drink the more the yield is great. 
And the milk savours of the food they eat : 
Some to the young the mother's teats forbid, 415 

And nozzle with sharp spikes the calf and kid ; 
Press during night the stores they yield by day, 
At dawning morning Pastor haste away, 
Bear off thy cheeses fresh to market town, 
Save what for winter use is stored and salted down. 420 






70 THE GEORGICS. Book III. 

Not last or least the faithful clog uphold, 

Thy Spartan fleet, or thy Molossian bold; 

Give hirn the whey, and trust him for relief 

From wolf, Iberian brigand — and the thief: 

Attendant on thy pastime will he go 425 

And chase the onager, the hare or roe, 

Will force the stubborn boar to stand at bay, 

And fright to nets the antler'd stag a prey. 

With cedar shavings fumigate thy stall, 
Purge with Galbanean incense floor and wall : 430 

The baneful viper, hating light and air, 
Will nestle underneath and harbour there; 
The snake will seek the roof-tree and its gloom, 
And shed, o'er beasts below, disease and doom; 
Arm shepherds, arm with staves and stones your hands, 435 
And tumid wrath and fangs oppose with brands, 
Smite, chase them forth, the blow can hardly fail, 
If that the head be hidden, smite the tail, 
Slowly the wounded snake a crippled coil doth trail. 

Calabria hath a vile malignant snake, 440 

Haunting the rough uncultivated brake, 
His back bescaled, spotted the breast below ; 
The whilst the rivers break their bounds and now. 



Book III. THE GEOKGICS. 71 

And Auster pouretk waters from the skies, 
He haunts the marsh, on rushy bank he lies, 445 

And fish and frog, glut his insatiate maw; 
And when the pools are dry and earth is hoar, 
Thirsty and wrathful rangeth he the wolds, 
And arid lands, with glaring eyes beholds : 
Not then, not then, on herbage soft would I, 450 

Or beneath shady tree soft slumbering lie, 
Whilst with cast slough, in youth renewed and strong- 
Abandoning his nest-eggs, or his young, 
He lifts his crested head, — vibrates his triple tongue. 

Diseases now, cause and effects, behold: 455 

When turpicl murrain lights upon the fold, 
When grease adheres to hides but newly shorn, 
Or harmed by frost, or lacerating thorn ; 
Then drive them where the living waters flow 
And where the pool lies deep its bank below, 460 

Hurl in the ram adown the stream to swim, 
And urge the flock to plunge and follow him : 
Anoint them newly shorn with lees of oil, 
With litharge, and with brimstone rub and moil, 
Idsean pitch, wax, fat, in unguent strain 465 

With garlick, hellebore, and bitumen : — 



72 THE GEOKGICS. Book III. 

But after all, no remedy is found 

To equal the cold steel, incise a wound, 

Give ills their vent, worse by concealment made, 

The whilst the shepherd, sitting in the shade, 470 

Doth supplicate the Heavens above for aid. — 

But if the malady hath pierced the reins 

And arid fever revels. in the veins, 

Avert its force by bleeding in the foot; 

Such practice the Bisaltan shepherds moot, 475 

And on Mount Bhoclope the Gelon rude, 

And Getan of the desert, quaffing food 

Of curdled milk mingled with horses' blood. 

If far and all apart you see one lie, 
Or snuffle at the pasture listlessly, 480 

Or cease to feed, — or mope in weary plight, 
To fold returning by itself at night, 
The knife must expiate such fault, before 
The dread contagion spreadeth any more ; 
Not more disastrously doth Hyems rave, 485 

When he in wrath bursts on the troubled wave, 
Than such contagion sheds upon the fold; 
On flock and herd alike it taketh hold, 
And perish all alike the stalwart young and old. 



Book III. 



THE GEORGICS. 



73 



They know this well, who past the Alpine bounds 490 
Have seen the Noric camp's deserted mounds, 
Or where Timavus laves Japidian land ; 
After long lapse of years their deserts stand 
Vacant and silent, since the fatal times 
The Heavens shed contagion on their climes ; 495 

In the autumnal heats the cattle died, 
Beasts of the forests fell on every side, 
Water grew poisonous, — corrupt the heath ; 
Not one or simple was the mode of death, 
Not arid veins, thirst, fevered blood alone, 500 

But clammy sweats corrupting blood and bone ; 
Oft would the victim, whilst the priesthood bound 
The sacred fillets, fall without the wound, 
Nor sacred fane nor priesthood him avails, 
Death, at the altars of the Gods, prevails; 505 

Tho' holy steel should strike the fatal blow, 
The fires upon the altar failed to glow, 
The offered entrails unconsumecl remained, 
Kesponse nor presage aught the seer obtained; 
For ere the cultrum, held by holy hand, 510 

Shed blood on earth, did venom taint its sand ; 



74 THE GEORGICS. Book III. 

In the replenished stalls, as on the heath, 

Alike the steer and heifer yield their breath, 

The faithfal hound grows rabid, and a low 

Ignoble sound proclaims the stifled sow. 515 

The steed, the victor steed, with humbled pride, 
Turns from his pasture and its bubbling tide, 
Smites with his foot, perchance as cold he grows 
With intermittent sweat that ebbs and flows, 
Eigid his hide, not yielding to the touch, 520 

Such the premonitory signs, — e'en such ; 
As it progresses fiery beam his eyes, 
His palpitating flanks yield heavy sighs, 
The tide of black blood from the nostrils wells, 
And in the arid throat the rough tongue swells. 525 
The horn of wine Lensean seems to be 
A little respite in the malady; 
But now it changes, and his passion grows 
Headlong and headstrong in his mortal throes, — 
(Gods! shield us! and where so much error is 530 

Avert from us such dreadful remedies) 
With cruel teeth he tears himself and dies. 

The toiling ox before the share lies low, 
In bloody foam behold the life-blood flow ; 



Book III. THE GEOKGICS. 75 

The lone companion of the fallen beast 535 

Is by the grieving ploughboy's hand released, 
They leave the ploughshare bedded in the clay, 
And homeward wend their melancholy way. 

Nor wooded shades, nor the soft meadow's side, 
Nor river gleaming in its pearly pride, 540 

Nought, nought can for the healthful beam atone 
Or soothe the spirit when its strength is gone. 
With sides collapsed and heavy heads amazed 
They stand, with cheerless eyes, by stupor glazed ; 
Their worth avails them not, their daily toil, 545 

And acres of ameliorated soil ; 
No feasts had they or revelries abused, 
No draughts of Bacchant Massican misused, 
The leaves and herbs supplied their simple food, 
They drank the limpid waters of the flood, 550 

And sleep from cares exempt their wasted strength renewed. 

'Tis handed down, that then and there in vain 
Tavo bulls were sought to draw Saturnia's wain, 
That the unbroken Uri served their stead, 
And to the high Donaria were led : 555 

The countryman was fain to hoe the land 
And cast the seed in furrows made by hand ; 



76 THE GEOEGICS. Book III. 

No ravening wolf infested then the fold, 

Disease more fell had quelled his hunger bold ; 

The does and deer forsook their native glen 560 

And roamed the civic haunts of dogs and men ; 

The monsters of the deep like fate endure 

Like shipwrecked corpses cast upon the shore, 

The tribes of Phocse sink in depths unknown, 

The viper dies in its deep den of stone, 565 

The bristling hydra yields its dying groan ; 

Foul and infectious grows the atmosphere, 

The denizens of clouds are smitten there: 

Nor change of pasturage, nor drugs avail, 

The arts remedial of physic fail, 570 

Physicians fail, — Chiron Phillyrides, 

Melampus or, — art baffled by disease; 

Sent from the Stygian regions to the light 

Pallid Tisiphone asserts her might ; 

Behold her urge her pestilent career 575 

Attended by her handmaids Plague and Fear: 

The flowing rivers and once balmy heath 

Resound the varied utterance of death ; 

The stalls polluted render up the slain, 

And tumuli are heaped upon the plain, 580 



Book III. THE GEORGICS. 77 

Until the heaps refuse to bury more 

And bodies in the pit are covered o'er. 

The very hides were useless, fire nor wave 

Could purge the odour or the foulness lave, 

The wool was useless, nothing could release 585 

Inherent venom from the tainted fleece ; 

Whoe'er profanely dared such garment don, 

Blains, fiery boils, and fevers seized upon; 

From tainted blood foul perspiration ran, 

And the infernal fire preyed on man. 590 



I 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 79 



BOOK IV. 

A EEIAL Honey, gift celestial, hail ! 

Once more, Maecenas, let my theme prevail, 
Nor lightly hold the subject of the song; 
Kings and Communities to it belong, 
Manners and Instincts, wars of right or wrong; 5 

Light subjects win high praise, provided aye 
No God oppose and Phoebus prompt the lay. 

First choose a fitting homestead for the hive, 
And sheltered from the breeze, for breezes drive 
The laden wanderers returning home; 10 

Thither forbid the browzing kid to roam, 
Nor let the errant heifer e'er disturb 
The morning dew or crush the budding herb; 
The long-backed painted lizard keep afar, 
The Merops, and all birds that hostile are, 15 

And Procne with her bosom stained with blood ; 
That soaring devastates with ruthless mood, 
And crams her callow young with dulcet food. 



80 THE GEOKGICS. Book IV- 

Be gushing fountains there, and beds of reeds 

And rills of water rushing thro' the meads ; 20 

For vestibule some olive old, or palm, 

That, when the king in springtide leads the swarm 

And heads the youngsters issuing from the comb, 

The running stream may lure, or ere they roam, 

And hospitable foliage lend a home. 25 

Whether the waters live or stagnant be, 

Cast rocks therein and boughs of willow-tree, 

That so the wearied wanderers may drink, 

Bathe their light wings, or dry them on the brink, 

If that perchance the furious Eurus cast 30 

Their feeble bodies in the waters vast ; 

Plant then green cassia there and rosemary 

And widely-breathing thyme, and savory, 

And violets — where running waters be. 

And for the hive, whether the hollowed bark 35 

Or woven osiers form its chamber dark, 

Narrow its entrance, for the winter's cold 

Congeals, as summer melts, its hoard of gold : 

The Bees fear each extreme, and clog with care 

Each orifice and aperture of air, 40 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 81 

With wax and gluten gathered from the flowers, 

Viscous as pitch from Phrygian Ida's bowers. 

And oft they scoop, if fame speak truth, their cave, 

And in the earth and darkness dwelling have, 

Deep in the pumice rock dig galleries, 45 

And haunt interiors of hollow trees; 

Therefore prepare some light and unctuous loam, 

And mixed with leaves anoint their crannied home. 

Koast not a crab, avoid the baneful yews, 

Avoid the miasmatic marsh and dews, 50 

All dirt and loathsome scents avoid and shun, 

And rocks resounding unto Echo's tongue. 

And when the golden Sol doth drive away 
The frosty Hyems with his brighter day, 
To grove and glade the wanderers repair; 55 

They cull the purple blossoms here and there, 
And sip the running waters as they flow, 
And thence inspired, but how I do not know, 
Some happy instinct prompts them to provide 
For progeny, to build with conscious pride 60 

The waxen cell, where stores of honey bide. 

And when you see, some balmy breathing day 
The issuing swarm appear and wing its way 

o 



82 THE GEOEGICS. Book IV. 

Like to a cloud wafted on wings of wind, 

Water and shade, be sure, they seek to find; 65 

Haste now, and with the scents they love, them greet, 

Bruised rnelisphylla and the woodbine sweet, 

Our mother's cymbals beat, strike the alarm, 

They on the medicated seats will swarm, 

And in the hive ensconce from light and harm. 70 

But should they issue forth when discord sows 
Betwixt two kings the seeds of war and woes, 
Then straightway do we recognize afar 
The fearless bustle and the din of war ; 
E'en as the brazen trumpet, in the field 75 

Impels the ardent, rallies those that yield, 
They rush to their battalions, — prove their wings, 
Nerve legs and thighs, and furbish up their stings, 
Headquarters and their king they rally round 
And call the foe with a defiant sound ; 80 

Then in an hour serene, to fields of air s 
From their prsetorium, they to fight repair, 
They mingle and they fall, as from the oak 
The acorns fall in autumn, tempest-struck; 
Amongst the ranks conspicuous speed the kings 85 

With boiling courage and superior wings, 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 83 



With souls magnanimous they fight and die, 
Till force superior win the victory. 

Now in such case all this contention warm, 
A little dust cast o'er them will disarm. 90 

And when both kings are driven from the plain, 
Destroy the worst, chase rivalry amain, 
And let the better o'er the kingdom reign. 
Fair is the form of him you must select; 
Of golden hue with shining spots bedeckt; 95 

Foul is the other, for the kinds are twain, 
With a huge body of a murky stain : 
And e'en as are the kings their subjects are, 
Like to a lump of dust do these appear; 
Those shine and glitter in their fairer mould 100 

With spotted bodies glittering like gold; 
Those be thy care, and at the proper hour 
Liquid and dulcet be the garnered store 
To meliorate in Bacchus, flavours sour. 

But should the swarm play truant, should they fly, 105 
Scorning the hive and labour, in the sky, 
Prohibit play to the deluded fools, 
Again the kings become thy easy tools, 

G 2 



84 THE GEORGICS. Book TV. 

Cut off their wings ; all will to camp repair, 

Whilst they behold the standard planted there. 110 

Let croceate blossoms lure with balmy breath, 
And place the hive the guardianship beneath, 
With willow rod affrighting birds and man, 
Priapus of Hellespontiacan. 

And ye who in such trouble take a pride, 115 

Sow thyme around, and mountain-pines provide ; 
Contemn not toil, but with thine own right hand 
Plant flowering plants and drench the planted land. 

Now I behold my journey almost o'er, 
Or ere I furl my sail and put to shore, 120 

Perchance I ought on garden-flowers to prose ; 
Of the twice-blossoming sweet Psestum rose, 
Of thirsty succory, of parsley green, 
Of cucumbers, with tortuous bine between 
The herbage dank, or bulging into fruit, 125 

Of the acanthus with its flexile shoot, 
Of the narcissus and the ivy hoar, 
And myrtle on its loved and cherished shore. 

For when I 'mind me of (Ebalia's walls, 
And of the lands where black Galesus falls, 130 



Book IV. THE GEOKGICS. 85 



The old Corycius comes into my mind : 

He held some acres, by all else resigned, 

Unfitted for the plough, for flocks unfit, 

And for the Bacchanalian vine unmeet ; 

Amidst this scrub his plots of herbs found room, 135 

Verbense, lilies, and the poppies' bloom, 

Kings equalled not the heart's content he owed 

As eve returning, feasts unbought bestowed. 

Spring's earliest rose was his and autumn's store, 

And when the winter closed the cabin-door 140 

He cropped, e'en then, leaves of acanthus green, 

And railed on Zephyrus and frosts unseen; 

Therefore he nourished Bees in hives untold, 

And first from honeycomb expressed its gold, 

He planted linden-trees, and fruitful pines, 145 

And elms slow growing in appointed lines; 

His fruit-trees glorious in their vernal suit 

Were equalled in their stock of autumn fruit, 

Pears on their stocks, plums on the thorn appear, 

And spreading plane for festal shade was there. 150 

But here I leave Corycius, to resume 

The theme, for which my narrowed space lacks room. 



86 THE GEOKGICS. Book IV. 

Now, Muse, proceed, let us propound the laws 
Which Jupiter to Bees assigned, because 
By song Curetan and the cymbals led, 155 

In cave Dictsean, Heaven's "King was fed. 

They, only, hold in common sons and hive, 
And under common roofs in cities live; 
They under laws unchangeable, alone 
One country and domestic worship own ; 160 

Mindful of coming winter, see them toil, 
And in the summer hoard the common spoil ; 
Purveyors some, for provender who roam, 
And scour the fields around; and some at home, 
With the bark's gluten and Narcissus' tear, 165 

The waxen frame from its foundations rear: 
They form the waxen cells, they educate 
The rising youth, hope of the future state; 
Of purest honey they their loads distil, 
And every cell with liquid nectar fill: 170 

Some stand by lot as wardens, and explore 
The changeful vault of Heaven o'er and o'er; 
Some ease the wearied wanderers of their load. 
And others' lot it is to chase abroad 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 87 

The idle herd of drones; their common aim 175 

Is fragrant honey redolent of thyme. 

As when the Cyclops forge the bolts of Jove, 
With what alacrity they move, remove, 
Urge the alternate blast from tough bull-hide, 
Or plunge the hissing metal in the tide, 180 

Etna resounds their hammers' equal peal 
The whilst the forceps bites the molten steel ; 
So if t be lawful to compare the twain, 
Some instinct moves the Bees Cecropian 

Up 

To their reciprocal desire of gain. 185 

The seniors keep the walls, they tend the comb, 

Foundations lay of their Daedalian home, 

The whilst the younger part at matin prime, 

At eve returning, thighs beclogged with thyme, 

Despoiling arbutus, their course is sped 190 

O'er yellow willows, casia, crocus red, 

The hyacinth ferruginous and lime: 

They all observe slumber's appointed time, 

They rise and forth they go at morning dawn, 

And Hesperus appearing they return ; 195 

They reach the hive, refresh their wearied plight, 

And buzzing round the threshold they alight, 



88 THE GEOKGICS. Book IV. 

Into their dormitory cells they creep, 

And night and silence lnll them into sleep. 

If on the morrow Enrns blow, or rain, 200 

Safe within civic precincts they remain, 
Or short excursions make. Anon they fly 
With ballast of small stone beneath the sky, 
Like to the bounding bark upon its trackless way. 
Strange thing of all, they lack the sexual sense, 205 
The Bees indulge in no concupiscence, 
No pangs of love insane, no throes of birth; 
Their future sons they gather from the earth 
From herb and blossom, and perpetuate 
Their king, their young Quirites, and their state. 210 
And some in wandering wound their wings and die, 
Still, still they hug their loads, as prone they lie, 
Such is their love of sweets, such glory in their prey. 

And thus, altho' their mortal term be short, 
Say seven summers, they decay not aught; 215 

Immortal stands their race and dynasty, 
From age to age, thro' long posterity. 

Besides, not Egypt's sons, nor Lydian, 
Nor Parthian, nor Hydaspan Median, 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 89 

Observe such deep respect unto their king ; 22< i 

With him, concordant all and flourishing, 

Without him all discordant, forth they roam, 

Scatter the honey, and destroy the comb; 

Whilst he o'erlooks, they gather him around, 

And own their gladness with a buzzing sound 225 

Escort him, carry him, and fight — and fall 

With joy and gladness unequivocal. 

And by these signs and these examples led, 

There are who deem, that upon Bees is shed 

A portion of th' ethereal soul divine 230 

Of God, pervading earth and seas of brine, 

The deep-blue vault above, the heart of man, 

Beast, brute, and all that militate life's span ; 

That all return to elements again 

Subject no more to death, but to the plain, 235 

The azure plain they flee, and join its starry train. 

And when you raid their treasures, arm thine hand 
With sprinkling waters and a smoking brand : 
Two honey-harvests crown the passing year 
When first Taygeta, the Pleiad fair ! 240 

Eises, and when she couches in the main, 
Chased by Australis Piscis, and the rain. 



90 THE GEOEGICS. Book IV. 

Beware, ye swains, that raid the honey-store 
When headlong rage discriminates no more, 
They launch the venomed wound on all they find, 245 
And leave their sting and leave their life behind. 

But if you fear a rigorous winter-time, 
And famine and the frost, then scatter thyme, 
And take all empty wax forth from the hives; 
For oft the lizard hybernating lives . 250 

In empty waxen cell, the tinea there, 
And the drone, lurking in another's lair, 
The hornet in his tyrannising might, 
And the enveloped woodlouse, hating light, 
Arachne, noted by Minerva's hate, 255 

Spreads web and woof before the very gate; 
Ah ! for them, poor and needy, you must strive 
With greater zeal to let them live and thrive, 
Kestoring stores to the exhausted hive. 

And when they suffer sickness and disease, 260 

For, as with mortals, ills attend on Bees, 
They will betray it by some certain sign : 
They lose their colour, lean, they droop and pine, 
Forth from the hive they bear departed Bees, 
And sadly minister their obsequies ; 265 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 91 



Or knitted feet to feet they form a chain, 

Or shut within the precincts, they remain 

The prey of rabid famine and of frost ; 

Deep grows their lazy buzz, its gladness lost, 

Like wintry Auster amidst leafless trees, 270 

Like as the shore repelling refluent seas, 

Or raging flames ypent in furnaces. 

Burn fumes Galbanean in such case, and feed 
With their own honey, spread in hollow reed, 
Lure them, if lure you can, to known repast; 275 

Add juice of oak-apple and roses brast, 
Psythian grapes, wine mulled by fire and time, 
Centaurean incense and Cecropian thyme. 
There is a meadow-weed, Amellus, wist 
By simple-gathering rural herbalist; 280 

Upon its single stem maint blossoms grow, 
Its flowers golden, but its leaf in hue 
Yies with the purple of the violet, 
Its taste is harsh, the peasant seeks for it 
On the mown meadows where the Mella strays, 285 

Culled to wreathe altars upon festal days ; 
Infuse its root in Bacchus, and the brew 
Offer in canisters the Bees unto. 



92 THE GEOBGICS. Book IV. 

But if it hap the race should disappear, 
Nor means whereby to renovate be near, 290 

Behoves to call to mind Arcadia's reign, 
Where from corrupted blood of oxen slain, 
Bees ofttimes spring. — 

Now let me trace 
This Fame to fountain-head and secret place : 295 

For where Canopus, Town Pellsean, stands 
Where Nilus overflows its happy lands, 
Where painted barges float his fields above; 
And also where the quivered Persians rove, 
And where iEgyptus fecundates his sand 300 

Bursting thro' seven mouths the ocean strand, 
To the far stream of swarthy India, 
All these possess the secret to repair 
The loss of Bees from the corrupted steer. 

First choose the spot, narrow the space and small, 305 
Cover with tiles, and gird it with its wall ; 
Through orifices four, admit the day, 
From the four winds and with an oblique ray, 
Choose a young bull with horns at two years old, 
Him by the nostrils seize and struggling hold, 310 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 93 

So shall his bowels putrefying bide 

Within the unscathed precincts of the hide. 

Deposit him within and leave him there 

With leafy branches, thyme and casia — 

Do this when Zephyr hovers o'er the main, 315 

Or ere fair colours deck the wood and plain, 

Or ere the chattering swallow, welcome guest ! 

Dependent from the roof-tree builds its nest. 

Meantime as vital tumours tepify, 

And tender bones and body putrefy, 320 

Behold ! reanimation doth begin ; 

A trunk at first, then by degrees they win 

Their feet and strident wings, anon they rise 

In number numberless and blur the skies, 

Thick as the driving drops of summer rain, 325 

Thick as the Parthian arrows, when they strain 

Their matchless bows on the embattled plain. 

What God, ye sister Muses, gave to man 
This further boon, — say whence it began. 

The Pastor Aristseus left his bees 330 

The prey of ruthless famine and disease, 
He left Peneian Tempe, and he stood 
Venting the plainings of his bitter mood 
Upon the sacred fountain of its flood. 



94 THE GEOEGICS. Book IV. 

Mother Cyrene, Mother, that dost dwell 335 

In these unfathomed depths in secret cell, 
Say why am I, by Fates and Fortune, stung: 
An' if I be indeed from Heaven sprung, 
And if Thymbrseus Phoebus be my sire. 
Wherefore diclst thou to Heaven bid me aspire? 340 
Is all your former love towards me gone ? 
Lo ! the one thing I placed my love upon 
Midst flocks and harvests, that I made my part 
Is rudely reft, and thou my Mother art ! 
Go on, protecting Parent, let thy hand 345 

Tear down my groves and blight my planted land, 
Level with fire my stalls, and blast each root, 
The whilst thy two-fold axe assails the shoot : 
Such actions with thy love, such with my glory suit. 

His Mother heard the plaint her couch upon, 350 

Her nymphs around Milesian fleeces spun, 
Tinted with saturating dye marine, 
Drymo and Xantho, Ligea there are seen, 
Phyllodyce with o'er suffusing hair, 
Nessee, Spio bright, and Thalia fair, 355 

Cydippe and Lycorias, one a maid 
But one had once invoked Lucina's aid, 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 95 

Clio and Beroe, Oceanidcs, 

Sisters, with zones of gold and glorious dyes, 

Opis, Ephyre, and Cymodoce, 360 

Deiopeia Asian, and nigh 

Swift Arethusa, Dian's shafts laid by : 

And unto these did Clymene relate 

How Vulcan vainly strove against his fate, 

The wiles of Mars, the thrilling thefts of love, 365 

From Chaos, thickly chronicled above. 

Caught by the song the pensile spindles slept: 

Again the plaint of Aristseus swept 

And fell upon the quick maternal ear, 

On seats translucent each nymph bent to hear, 370 

But first and foremost Arethusa sprung 

And reared her golden locks the waves among, 

And from afar — It was no empty tone, 

Sister Cyrene, this grief is thine own, 

'Tis Aristaeus weeping on the wave 375 

Peneus of, invoking thee to save. 

The breast maternal struck with sudden fear 

Cyrene calls, lead hither, lead him here, 

Thresholds divine for him no barriers have : 

Then by her simple will she cleft the wave, 380 



96 THE GEOEGICS. Book IV. 

And girt with waters which o'erarching stood, 
The youth descended the paternal flood : 
He marvelled much at the maternal home, 
The realm of rivers in the crystal dome, 
There were the secret founts, in cave or grove, 385 

Of every river ere it burst above. 
Stunned he beheld the waters in their force, 
Phasis and Lycus, and each secret source 
Whence Enipeus, whence Tiberinus sprung, 
Whence Anio and whence Hypanis was flung. 390 

Thro' rifted rocks, and Mysian Cai'cus, 
And, with twain taurine horns, Eridanus, 
Golden Eridanus, none swift as he 

Flows 'twixt more fertile banks or meets a brighter sea. 
From her spread couch, the pumice dome below 395 
Cyrene heard the tale of filial woe : 
Water is proffered by the sister band, 
And fleeces spread, the work of their own hand. 
Pancheean incense kindles on the shrine ; 
Whiles they prepare the viands and the wine, 400 

Cyrene spoke, now take carchesia twain, 
Libate we now Bacchus Maeonian 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. <J7 

Oceanus unto; — whom she herself implored, 

Father of all things and primaeval lord ; 

And sisterhood of nymphs, who guard the floods, 405 

Sources unnumbered of the sacred woods, 

And sacred Vesta ; — with nectareous wine 

Libating thrice, thrice rose the flame divine. 

Confirmed by happy omens, she began, 
In the Carpathian Gulf, Neptunian, 410 

Dwelleth Caerulean Proteus, the seer ; 
Yoked dolphins urge his aqueous career, 
Or biped steeds are joined unto his car : 
E'en now revisits he Emathia 

Pallene at, his ancestral abode ; 415 

Him do the nymphs, him doth the ancient God, 
The venerable Nereus, venerate ; 
For He is cognizant of future fate, 
And present, and remembereth he the past ; 
Neptune so willed, on whose possessions vast 420 

He guards and tends the turpid Phocse train ; 
Now Him, if thou assailing couldst enchain, 
He will divulge the cause of the disease, 
And tell the remedy to heal the Bees : 



98 THE GEOEGICS. Book IV. 

But force alone, no prayers avail with him ; 425 

Superior strength and to enchain each limb ; 

But once enchained, terrors delusive fly. 

Thee will I lead, when the sun, mounted high, 

Withers the drooping herbage with his heat, 

Thee will I lead unto the secret seat 430 

Wherein the weary senior taketh rest ; 

And when with chains and strength superior pressed, 

He strives with wiles and terrors to delude, 

A bristly boar's or tiger's form indued, 

The scaly dragon's, tawny lioness', 435 

With lightning flash within thy grasp to hiss, 

Thy grasp within, a cataract to fall, 

Be not dismayed, grasp him despite of all, 

He will at last the native form resume 

In which you caught him slumbering in gloom. 440 

She said, diffusing fumes ambrosial, 

The liquid odours spread upon the gale, 

They penetrate his ordered locks and throw 

A mien majestic on his mortal brow. 

Deep in a rocky bluff extends a cave 445 

Swept by the wind and eaten by the wave, 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 99 

A refuge once to wrecked seafaring men, 

Where Proteus haunts in rock-defended den. 

In its deep gloom obscured, Cyrene hides 

Her son, herself obscured in nebula abides. 450 

Now Sirius, star of Ind, and Sol on high 
Together ride and drink the fountains dry; 
Withers the herbage, and the tepid mud 
Cracks in the concave hollow of the flood. 
Now Proteus, as his wont is, quits the wave 455 

And with his herds marine resumes his cave. 
The Phocge tribe exultant scatter spray, 
Or with their lithless bulks in slumber lie. 
There he, like to a shepherd of the plain, 
When Vesper calls the flock to fold again, 460 

What time the wolf doth raid, so from a rock 
Doth Proteus scan and number off his flock. 
With joy did Aristseus see the seer 
Compose himself to sleep within his lair, 
Then leapt upon him, and him manacled : 465 

And Proteus who beheld himself assailed, 
Resorted to his craft, transformed he stood 
As raging fire, and as a falling flood, 

h 2 



100 THE GEORGICS. Book IV 

And forms appalling, but when all were sped 

In his own form and his own tongue he said; 470 

Who bade thee thus, youth over-confident 
To bind me here, and say, with what intent ? 

Thou know'st, Proteus! none so well as thou, 
None can cheat thee, nor thou beguile me now, 
Instructed by the Gods I hither come, 475 

And stand, to be instructed of my doom. 
Flashing and rolling round his sea-green eyes, 
Gnashing his teeth, the angry seer replies, 
Thy doom ! thy monstrous crime ! and Heaven's wrath 
Is poured on thee and thy devoted path : 480 

The blameless Orpheus, mourning for his spouse 
Inflicts with every ill that Fate allows : 
His spouse Eurydice fled thy pursuit, 
And thro' the herbage with unwary foot 
Trod the huge Hydra at the river's side: 485 

The Dryads mourned their sister as she died, 
And lamentation echoed far and nigh, 
Wept Khodopeian crags, Pangsea high, 
Mavortian realms of Khesus, Geta, and 
Hebrus, and Actian Orithya's strand. 490 









Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 101 

The hollow sounding tortoise-shell he strung, 

And sought relief in solitude and song ; 

The dewy morning, and grey eventide 

Heard him invoke Eurydice his bride ; 

Onward he roamed to the Tsenarian jaws 495 

Of gloomy Dis, the black repulsive doors, 

Entered the realm of shades, the gloomy reign 

Of hearts which never feel for human pain : 

But song prevailed o'er Erebus profound, 

Gathered the silent shades and ghosts around, 500 

Many, aye many, as the feathered tribe 

That seek the sheltering grove at eventide, — 

Matrons and men and the heroic shades, 

All equal there, youths and unmarried maids, 

And infants, placed upon the funeral pyre 505 

By hands parental, — them the sable mire 

And sedge and swamp Cocytus of oppose, 

And dismal coils of ninefold Styx enclose. 

Listened amazed the house and home of death 

The depths profound of Tartarus beneath, 510 

The dread Eumenides, and serpents wound 

Their locks amidst, are spell-bound at the sound ; 



102 THE GEORGICS. Book IV. 

Ixion and the blasts that whirl him rest, 

And Cerberus his triple jaws repressed ; 

Thro' every obstacle he won his way, 515 

Eurydice regained he leads away, 

Clogged with one sole condition by the queen 

That she behind should follow him unseen ; 

But ah, by love or madness overwrought, 

How meet for pardon, if Dis pardoned aught, 520 

Upon the confines of the light above 

Did Orpheus turn to gaze upon his love: 

The broken covenant and labour lost 

Were echoed thrice thro' the Avernan coast. 

Orpheus, my spouse beloved ! the maiden said, 525 
By what unhappy fate are we betrayed, 
Again the Fates compel me and I go 
To leaden slumbers and the realms below, 
Farewell, farewell, I stretch my arms in vain, 
Dark mists involve me, thou art lost again ; 530 

So spoke the maid and vanished into night 
As rising mist absorbs itself in light : 
Nor did she see unhappy Orpheus fain 
To snatch her shade, nor hear his cry of pain, 



Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 103 

Nor see the Orcan ferryman deny 535 

A second passage to the lover's plea, 

Nor see what tears, what melody he tried 

To move the Gods for his twice ravished bride, 

The Stygian bark within, naked she crossed its tide. 

For seven months, they say, where Strymon flows 540 
Beneath its desert rock, he sung his woes, 
Tigers and oaks enchanted by his song 
Sought the cold grot wherein he lay and sung: 
So singeth Philomela in her shade, 

When the rude countryman her nest hath raid 545 

And ta'en the callow young, — the livelong night 
Bemoaneth she her desolated plight, 
Interminable plaint, thro' darkness and thro' light. 
Venus, nor Hynienaeus soothed not him ; 
On the Kiphean mounts, or frozen stream 550 

Of Tanais, in Hyperborean frost 
Bewaileth he, Eurydice twice lost, 
And the vain gifts of Dis : — Ciconian dames, 
Stung by his scorn, amidst their sacred games 
And orgies of nocturnal Bacchus, found * 555 

And strewed his lacerated limbs around ; 
The comely head torn from the marble neck 
Floats down CEagrian Hebrus, like a wreck, 



104 THE GEOEGICS. Book IV. 

And as it swam, Eurydice it sung, 

Eur j dice with voice and frigid tongue, 560 

Eurydice its soul's last parting sigh, 

And the hoarse banks echoed Eurydice. 

So Proteus spoke and plunged him in the flood. 
Again beside her son Cyrene stood 
And reassured him as she said ; Behold, 565 

The cause of all thine ills is said and told ; 
The Dryad choir, her sisterhood below, 
Visits, retributive, thy Bees with woe ; 
Prepare thy gifts, extend thy suppliant hand 
And venerate the mild Napsean band, 570 

They will forego their wrath and pardon you: 
Now learn from me the expiation due, 
Erom forth thy herds on the Lycsean mead 
Select four Bulls the fairest there that feed, 
Four heifers by the yoke untouched assign, 575 

And on four altars, at the Dryad shrine 
Before their fane, shed thou the sacred blood 
And leave the bodies in the shady wood; 
The ninth succeeding morn the rites renew, 
Sooth Orpheus, with Lethsean poppy dew, 580 

With heifer calf Eurydice, ensue 
And to the Dryad choir a sable ewe 






Book IV. THE GEORGICS. 105 

Kevisit then their grove and learn thy weal or woe. 

The youth sprung forth his mother to obey, 
He raised four altars on the Dryads' lea, 585 

He slew the victims, ungalled by the yoke ; 
And when the ninth succeeding morning broke 
Soothed with infernal rites the angry shades, 
And then revisited the Dryad glades: 
A prodigy and blessing there he sees, 590 

The putrefying bodies swarm'd with bees ; 
From every carcase prostrate on the ground 
The swarms ascend aloft with rushing sound, 
And cluster on each tree and every branch around. 

Of fields, and fruit, and herds, thus sung have I, 595 

The whilst Great Caesar wins his onward way 

Olympus to : — 

Now, on Euphrates' banks, he fulminates 

Imposing laws on rude but grateful states : 

And I, Yirgilius, in ignoble ease 

At sweet Parthenope indulge in these, 600 

As erst, in daring youth, my shepherd's song 

" Oh Tityre ! the chesnut shades among." 



NOTES. 



On Neptune and the Horse. — Book I. Line 13. 

Grievous though it be to add to the scepticism of the age, 
yet the Horse of Neptune must be ranked among the blunders 
which Greece made in her interpretation of the old Pelasgic 
legends. It was most probably the well of water needed by 
the rock of the Acropolis. Grote says it was a well of saline 
water which he gave (vol. i. pp. 77 and 267) ; but probably this 
addition arose from the fact that saline and mineral waters 
were esteemed holy and dedicated to the Gods. The Eastern 
Beer (the well), the Grecian Phrear, became changed into the 
Pher, Ferns, which word involves Centaurs, the Cetus, and 
Horses ; whilst the word Hippo, pertaining to things marine, 
converted Poseidon and Colonus into equestrians ; Minerva, 
Ceres, and Juno are all Hippia ; and Minerva was wor- 
shipped as Hippia at Colonos. Bochart shows (Sacr. Geo. i. 
c. 475, 1. 28) that Hippos in the Phoenician tongue signified 
stagnum, a pool ; and, further, Horses and Bulls were almost 
synonyms of ships. Neptune's horse was named Scyphius ; 
and Hercules, with the arrow of Abaris, sailed round the 
world in his Scyphus, as our King Alfred sailed in his skiff. 
The asterism Argo, is called the Horse by the author of the 
Periplus of the Erythrean. The horse's head at Carthage 
was the Phoenician prow. The Bulls of Geryon and the Horses 
of Diomed are other instances in point. There is another 



108 NOTES TO THE GEOKGICS. 



complication in the Cippus, the almost constant adjunct to the 
well and to the tumulus ; and Bryant gives a chapter on the 
goddess Hippa (ii. p. 287), and points out the inconsistencies, 
as Aldrovandus had done before him. The horse in early ages 
was ominous of ill and boded war ; and it was a gift singularly 
inappropriate to stony Attica, the Acropolis, and the three 
harbours appertaining thereunto. 

But we can trace the word Beer, Phrear, in connexion with 
Hippos, in Hippolytus, who became Vir bius, a secret fountain 
oracle of the Arician Grove. And pursuing the subject to our 
own land — for Britain in primitive paganity is not " almost 
divided from the world " — the Nymph of the Wharfe, whose 
horned effigies is given in Camden, vol. iii. p. 239, is Yerbeia ; 
and in Wales, Bethgelert's tomb at Erfair (Erphia or Ervia), 
and appropriated to the Virgin, or to the Oak, and the many 
Llanfairs, are all modern renderings of the ancient oracular 
Beer, and its Witch, to which men went to inquire, as did 
Saul to the Bala Aub En Dor. 

The lake of Bala, with its mound, Tomen y Bala, and the 
adjoining church of Llanfair, probably transmit to our time 
the words of primitive Eastern Paganism. 

Osiris, line 21. 

Virgil does not mention Osiris by name : this was probably 
from deference to Egyptian superstition, it being held by them 
unholy to pronounce his name ; he is therefore invocated as the 
inventor of the plough. 

Neither doth he mention Aristaeus by name, who was an 
impersonation of Baal. The white oxen devolved on Apollo, 
and were fed on the banks of Clitumnus ; and are to-day pre- 
served by the Yesidi in the sanctuary of Sheikh Shems, or the 
Sun. (Layard, vol. i. p. 288.) 



NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 109 



Strymonian Cranes : Grus or Geranos.— Line 126. 

Strymonian Cranes I imagine to be fabulous birds. The Ibis 
in Egypt was held in highest honour, and was sacred to the 
God of Light ; hence they termed it Keren and Kerenus, 
which words are rendered " horns " and " rays of light." The 
Greeks made it Geranos, and it was sacred to Apollo, who 
had as titles Grynaeus, Carneius, Craneus. Pausanias tells us 
that on the Mount Gerania Megarus saved himself at the 
Deluge (of Ogyges ?). I trace the word in the following facts 
and fables : — 

Cranae. — The isle which received Paris and Helen. 

„ . \ Titles of Apollo. The Geranos sacred to hirn. 
Carneius ) 

Gram iFons Solis. A Solar Nymph, who was seized upon by Janus, 

Came I to hold the key ; and who redeemed her from Solar rites of 
blood by the white wand he gave her, and by which King Procas was saved 
from the Stryges. 

Grenna. — Cyrene, so called. Kur Ain, Fountain of the Sun, sacred to 
Apollo. 

Grane. — Aix la Chapelle. Clarendon in his History always calls it 
Aquae Grane. 

In Ireland : — 

Grian. — Celtic name of the Sun. 

Cairn. — Barrow dedicated to the Sun. 

New Grange. — One of the three Barrows of the Boyne. It has the cave 

in the centre — a crypt. It had the summit stone. It has boulder rocks 

forming its sacred way. And it was upon this tumulus St. Patrick lighted 

the Paschal fires which put out those of Tara, after which no king ever 

reigned at Tara more. 

Knock Greine )„,.. _,, 
m „ . VHills of the Sun. 
Tuam Greine j 

Q7" h W (Hills of Tipperary to the Sun and Moon. 

Cairne Grainey. — Sun heap. 
Grannys Bed. — Grian Beacht. 

Scotland : — 
" Apolloni Granno," in Camden. 



110 NOTES TO THE GEOKGICS. 



England : — 

The Cam, Khe, Graney, or Granta, Rivers of Cambridge — all signifying 
the Solar stream ; the Cam rising at Ash well, Ash signifying fire ; and the 
Graney rising at the Bartlow hills, three tumuli under Bumpstead Helion ; 
Cambridge was anciently called Ragae. 

Cran mere j 

Cran bourne > Fountains and lakes of the Sun. 

Cran brook ) 

The Geranos, warred on the Pygmies, crossed the Euxine 
from Cerambus to the Krio Metopon of the Crimea, flew out 
of sight in the heavens, was garrulous, and trod down the 
corn-fields like a troop of horse. 

In Holy Writ the bird is cited twice ; once in Isaiah xxxviii. 
14, " as a crane or a swallow so did I chatter," and Jeremiah 
viii. 7, " the crane and the swallow observe the time of 
coming." It is omitted amidst the clean and unclean birds in 
Deuteronomy. 

The Sis and the Agor are rendered the crane and the 
swallow, which Bochart disputes and reverses the translations. 

In the Metamorphoses of Ovid, Minerva depicts Gerana, 
Queen of the Pygmies, changed to the crane and compelled to 
war on her own people, and, in conjunction with that fable, 
Antigone changed to the white stork, who then commended 
herself with her chattering beak. Cerambus also was changed 
into a bird at the Deucalionic deluge. 

It is commonly supposed in England that we had a crane, 
now extinct, at least in these isles, which I imagine to be 
impossible, and that Cranmere on Dartmoor was called so 
from the cranes there congregating, but this is not so, there 
is nothing but desolation about Cranmere, and it is now the 
utter solitude it ever was and probably ever will be. 

Popular belief makes all the rivers of Dartmoor to rise from 
one central mere, called Cranmere, and old maps so depict 
them; but Cran is the Solar title attaching to the fountain 



NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. Ill 



source, and which in this case has only a fabulous existence ; 
and yet Cranmere so exemplifies the story of Grane and 
Janus, that I verily believe them to be the same. The Teign 
was a sacred river under the Druids — probably the word sig- 
nifies T'ain, the fountain source of the river — it has every 
species of Druidic paganism upon itself and tributaries — the 
Pixy parlour of Chudleigh Stone, the Dragon of Manaton and 
Bekky's Fall, and innumerable swarms of imaginary adders 
there, the cromlech called the Spinster's Rock, at Drew 
Stanton, and the Brad-mere there, which the peasant still 
dreads and avoids; it has logan stone, grey wethers, and 
circles, &c, &c, on Sittaford Tor, which the Teign surrounds. 
It has an old British bridge in its solitude, showing how 
much it was used in the processions to the Cranmere. Very 
near the source of the Teign occurs a mere called Ray barrow 
Pool, and though this is not Cranmere, yet it reflects the Re 
Bury, the Barrow of the Sun, in its name. But following 
from thence to the fountain head of the Teign, the story of 
Grane comes in as a complete exemplification of the mystery. 
She made her lovers go first, and disappeared from their eyes ; 
save of Janus, who saw behind ; and so the tourists search and 
look for Cranmere in vain. The Teign spreads its arm round 
Sittaford Tor, and from the summit morass the waters drain 
on either side, and the votary following the stream, returns to 
the main stream, where the circle is completed, and the Solar 
fountain remains hidden behind in its own mysterious source. 

As a Solar fountain it would have had blood rites, but 
wedded to Janus, and holding the hinge it became beneficent, 
and I suspect the blood rites were performed at Brad-mere 
and its enormous cromlech, whilst Cranmere was a fountain of 
grace and the summit of the Druidic votaries' aspirations in 
their processions. 

In Chamberlain's London, cranes are enumerated in the 



112 



NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 



royal ordinance, King Edward II., settling the prices of 

edibles. The following birds, which might pass for the crane, 

are priced thus :— 

s. d. qrs. 

The best Goose 5 

The best Wild Goose 4 

Mallard 10 

Heron 6 

Coalune (Curlew) 3 

Plover 10 

Swan 3 

Crane 3 

and in the prices as really sold, they appear : — 

s. d. qrs. 

Goose 4 

Mallard 12 

Heron 6 

Plover 10 

Swan 3 

Crane 10 

but in this enumeration the bittern and the old bustard are 
omitted. In Landseer's Bolton Abbey, the two birds sent to 
the abbot are the heron and the bittern ; the bittern pecu- 
liarly possesses the resounding note attributed to the geranos. 
I imagine the crane here mentioned to signify the bittern. 

In mythology the heron, Ardea, rose from the burning 
mound of the city Ardea, and his cry is assigned to him in 
the Metamorph. xiv. 578. 

It appears to me that the bird of Apollo, the Geranos, is a 
compound of the migrating stork, the high-soaring heron, the 
booming bittern, and the " improbus " goose. That this latter 
bird was sacred we know from the Capitol of Rome, where it 
was kept as sacred ; it also figures with the hut of Baucis and 
Philemon, and their sole gander takes refuge beneath the feet 
of the gods, to whom that wedded pair were about to serve 
him as food. The roof Romulean " thatched with straw," and 



NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 113 



tho Argcntcns Anscr, which accompanies it as symbols of 
Rome, are duplicated in a cup from Cuzco, Peru, in which the 
same symbols are the ornaments of the cup, the thatched 
" tholum " or dome, and the goose, whilst Cuzco was almost a 
reduplication of the Cave of Cacus, in its filth, and human 
sacrifices, and permuted syllables ; and the Peruvian rite of 
drawing down fire from Heaven on the feast of Raymi, the 
marriage with Sisters, soror et uxor, and other points, show 
that they derived from the like source as the old Etrurian. 

Ca3sar says our British forefathers did not eat the goose, if 
so, it needs must have been sacred with them. 

The Grus Cinereus is the bird chosen by naturalists and 
draughtsmen to personate the Geranos. The Demoiselle still 
makes us periodic visits ; but these birds do not fulfil the 
requirements of Homer, vEsop, and Virgil's cranes. Virgil in 
this Book refers thrice to these birds, including those enu- 
merated above — 

" Strymonian cranes and villain geese." — I. Line 126. 
" Herons quit the marsh and wing their flight 
'Midst clouds of Heaven." — I. Line 379. 
" When the white birds destroying snakes take wing." 

—II. Line 329. 

which last are interpreted to signify the stork, but which 
may also be the White Ibis. And lastly touching the 
Pygmies. Pyg is a radical word in mythology. The two 
Pygmalions, Adonis, Venus, and Hercules, all have this word 
amidst their titles, absurdly appropriated as Kallepygos and 
Melampygos ; but it was in the latter capacity that Hercides 
warred against the Cercopes, as Gerana warred against the 
Pygmies in virtue of some rivalry. There is a bas-relief in 
the British Museum showing Hercules carrying off two apes, 

I 



114 NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 



Cercopes, slung behind him, who with heads downwards are 
making discovery of his Melampygos. Upon the sphere of 
Denderah Orion is shown accompanied by some bird, which 
also sits on the sacred Tamarisk above the Tomb of Osiris. 
Wilk. Y. xxxv. 

" For He the Sire ordained it so to be." — Line 129. 

The unknown and the nameless God had seized upon many 

a thoughtful mind. At Dodona, God was the nameless God ; 

at Athens, we have the unknown God ; and Yirgil has in his 

iEneid, where Evander shows to iEneas the Mount Palatine — 

" (Quis Deus incertum est) habitat Dens," viii. 352. 

So also in the text Virgil follows the reverential manner of 
the Egyptians, and also of our own religion ; for when Moses 
asked for a name, Ex. iii. 14, he received a denial. 

Tlie Constellations. — Line 212. 

The Bonian Calendar was of no avail to the Eoman agricul- 
turist, so he went by the rising of the constellations. The 
difficulty in the Eoman adjustation of the year was that they 
had not our hours, minutes, and seconds, for a year consisting of 
365 days, five hours, forty-eight minutes, eleven seconds, it was 
impossible for them without such measures to adjust their 
own. 

They counted by years, days, hours, and cycles. The year 
consisted of thirty-eight periods of eight days each, their nun- 
dinae or market-days, sacred to Saturn, closing each period, 
and which made only 304 days; but the cycle of six years 
restored it, made six of 304 days equal to five of ours of 365, 
which they kept further correct by intercalation of days, this 
state of things obtained until Caesar's time. 

The rising of the constellations is likewise a misleading rule 
followed through any length of time. Virgil opens his year 



NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 115 



with. Taurus golden-horned ; "but the precession of the Equi- 
noxes even then had passed into Aries, as Ovid apparently was 
aware of, for he states, Book x. 1. 80, Metamorph., Titan had 
the third time concluded the year with the " aequoreis " Pisces. 
We do the like ourselves. The Vernal Equinox has passed 
out of Aries, but we still begin our notion of the year with the 
Ram. 

" Tlie chesnut and the cesculus of Jove, 
And oak oracular of Grecian grove." 

Book II., line 1G. 

We are considerably at fault in our interpretation of some 
of the trees here mentioned — the fagus, the castanea, the 
arbutus, the palm, and probably the iEsculus. We have inter- 
preted too closely; arbute signifies all wild stocks, and not 
only the strawberry-tree, as malum signifies many sorts of 
fruit, and " castaneasque nuces," which Amaryllis loved, were 
not chesnuts which the pigs were munching at her gate, but, 
as we are taught, almonds, filberts, and walnuts. The fagus 
was the chesnut-tree ; the beech is not met with native below 
the Alps, while Ceesar has told us that the fagus did not grow 
in Britain The palm is the bay-laurel, as Phoebus said to 
Daphne : — 

" When public voice the Roman chiefs extol, 
Deck thou their triumph in the Capitol. 
Thou faithful guardian, on Augustus wait, 
Consort the sacred oak before his gate." 

And so in the Fasti, Book iv. 1. 952 : — 

" Laurel of Palatine, eternal be, 
And oak thy fellow sentinel, for three, 
Three gods inhabit here eternally." 

And Suetonius, amidst his tittle-tattle, writes that Augustus 
had a palm-tree sprung from beneath the pavement before his 
house, which he had transplanted to the canopy where stood 

I 2 



116 NOTES TO THE GEOKGICS. 



the Penates. And that when Julius was at Munda in Spain, 
and his army was cutting down a wood to encamp, he com- 
manded them to leave a palm as an omen of victory ; from 
this tree sprung a shoot, which, in a few days, overshadowed 
the parent tree, and doves built in its "branches, albeit they are 
birds that shun hard and prickly leaves. In both which in- 
stances the Bay is meant. 

Bryant informs us, vol. 2, p. 12, that the branch of a palm- 
tree was called Bai in Egypt, and that Baia are used for palm 
branches by St. John, c. 12, v. 13, as also twice in Maccabees, 
in the plural Baion, and adds : — " As the palm-tree was sup- 
posed to be immortal, or at least, if it did die, to revive and 
enjoy a second life, the Egyptians gave the name of Bai to the 
soul." 

It occurred to me, visiting Lesness Abbey about the year 
1835, that the gardener showed me a bay-tree which he said 
they had cut down and rooted up, but that it ever sprung up 
again, and added his opinion, that he thought there had been 
murder connected with it ; it is an instance of a like suppo- 
sition of the immortality of the bay existing amongst us as 
well as the Egyptians. 

We have next the fagus, i. e. the chesnut grafted and bear- 
ing the castaneas nuces, and we have the sesculus, supposed to 
be an oak, but we have no mention of the juglans, the gland 
of Jupiter, i. e. the walnut. The walnut is a tree in magnifi- 
cence and use nearly equal to the Chaonian oak itself. It is 
still the source of food in Greece, where I have purchased 
walnuts as food, and dined the cortege of guides with them. 
The absence of the juglans is inexplicable ; and I cannot help 
thinking that the assculus proper was the walnut, whilst iEscu- 
lian crowns are a generic, rather than especial, expression ; if 
so, the difficulty of discovering the edible acorn goes at once. 
If the walnut was not the sesculus, then the castanea must 
represent it, or it stands wholly omitted. 



NOTES TO THE GEOBGICS. 117 



The sacrifice of the Goat to Bacchus, II., 1. 391. The 
derivation of Tragedy from the Tragos, as its first prize, is 
another instance of perversion. 

Tragedy derives its origin from the exarchon of the 
Dithyrambic Chorus, and lays claim to highest antiquity ; 
Comedy from the leader of the Phallic ; (Mure, III. p. 87.) 

The Taur — instance, Diana Taurica and the sacrifice of Iphi- 
geneia — was a grand and noble, though unholy phase of Pagan 
worship. 

The Chomah, with its dance, song, and Bacchanalian fes- 
tivity, was its reverse. The tone in which Virgil writes of 
these Bacchanalia is deeply apologetic. The pendant images 
deduce from the god Khem in Egypt ; whilst the Goat — Epep 
in Coptic, as Aphoph, Apaphus, &c, the Lord of the Taur, 
King, Seer, and Priest as he was, and Capricornus Dux Gregis, 
once the first sign of the Zodiac — is now the victim of his 
Bacchanalian successors. Virgil declares that the incoherent 
song deduced from Troy ; it was of foreign birth and parentage. 

The Tauric rites were the first secession of Paganism from 
the worship of the true God : the Bacchanalia were the last 
and the lowest into which Paganism could or did decline. 



The sacrifice of blood devolved into immorality and revelry. 
Comus and Encomium derive thence. (Mure, III. p. 111.) 



" And thou Great Pales." — Book III. 1. 1. 

The Pali may be traced back to the East and the earliest 
period; Batuta treats of the Pali Dynasty of Gwalior, and 
the Periplus treats of the King of Palibothra. The Pals reigned 
at Gwalior for eighty-four generations, when they left it to 
Earn Deo their viceroy, and seven Earns in succession, who 
were conquered by Shams Oddin and the white elephant ; but 
the Indian sphynx appears to have been the symbol of the Pal, 
who will return and devour the elephant, as his effigies in the 



118 NOTES TO THE GEOEGICS. 



Asiatic researches shows him in the act of doing. The Pals 
built the Pagodas of Gwalior. 

From Palibothra in the East we trace them to Egypt in the 
Pallakides, and Philition the shepherd, who built the two 
pyramids of Gheeza, a race hated and detested and also calum- 
niated. Wilkinson, plate 82, gives one of the royal Pallades 
assisting the King in his fire-worship ; whilst old Phoenix, in 
the Iliad, informs us of his iniquity in marrying a Pallakis. 
Book ix. 449. 

We follow the shepherds to Palestina, and the Philistines ; 
where we find the fire-worship by foxes, as Samson punished 
the Philistines, and itself a Hetrurian rite preceding the Palilia 
of Pome, Yulpium Combustio in the Fasti of Ovid, Book iv. 
706. We also find the Furies called PalEestinas deas in the 
Fasti, Book iv. 236. 

We have also the sulphurous pools of the Palici, and the 
pinguis uhi et placdbilis ara Palici, iEn. ix. 585, in precisely the 
words he applies iEn. vii. 764, pinguis uhi et placahilis ara Diance, 
whence I infer that it had not ever been so, but had so become 
like to the Diana Taurica, and which prepares us for the pro- 
pitious Pales and the Palilia, descending from the hated Phi- 
lition and the Pallacides. 

In their propitious phase they worshipped the dove — " alba 
Palcestino culta columba viro" Semiramis of Babylon was 
changed to a dove, and " sits on the white towers of Babel 
eternally," as is seen portrayed on the Barbarini pavement in 
Faber's Cabeiri;_;the race of the Semarim worshipped it on 
Mount Gerizim, where the Samaritan sect exists to this day, 
and Mount Gerizim is now called " Jebel el Tur," probably 
signifying Mountain of the Dove. 

The fire-rites are prominent. Ovid inaugurates the day by 
thrice leaping the flames of wisps of straw, and the peasantry 
conclude it by rolling and leaping midst the ashes of her bon- 
fires. But Mount Palatine had its rite of sacrifice of blood 






NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 119 



over Aventine and its sanctuary. Remus fell by the hand of 
Celer, and the Eemuria or Lemuria were appointed to soothe 
the shade. 

The Palladium was formed of the burnt bones of Pelops. 
Pallas was produced by the hammer of Yulcan from the head 
of Jupiter. Our own Falladurs, Bath and Shaftesbury, are 
named from fire-rites and not from Minerva. 

Tales was both male and female — " modo vir modo foemina 
Scytlion" a peculiarity of the gods of the Cuthasan shepherds. 

The Pali tongue ranked under the Turanian, conjoined 
with the Phoenician ; and the Pali inscriptions, like the 
Phoenician, are undecypherable. The Buddhist sacred lan- 
guage in Ceylon is Pali. 

Virgil was obliged to weed from the followers of iEneas 
both Palinurus and Pallas, local names to be accounted for, 
and eponymous of the old fire- worshippers. 

William of Malmesbury has imagined the discovery of the 
body of Pallas at Eome with an epitaph in modern Latin, but 
he adds : — " There was a burning lamp at his head, constructed 
by magical art, so that no violent blast nor dripping of water 
could extinguish it. "Whilst many were lost in admiration of 
this, one person — as there are always some persons expert in 
mischief— made an aperture beneath the flame with an iron 
style, which, introducing the air, the light vanished," — showing 
that in William of Malniesbury's day the name Pallas was 
akin to fire and flame. 

I deduce from these that the old Pali shepherds, fire-wor- 
shippers, and human sacrificers, devolved into the Eoman 
Pales ; and at the foundation of Eome at the Palilia, the blood 
of Eemus shed by Celer reflected the old sacrifices which had 
made them so hateful, that the Egyptian would not mention 
the names of the kings who built the pyramids, but called 
them after Philition the shepherd. 



120 NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 



" Startle the ivoods and banks of Tanager." — III., 1. 166. 

This I imagine to be a niythologic episode, to bring in 
Egypt and the myth of 16 and the Brize to Italy. Apophis 
the Shepherd king was a Tanite. Tzon, or Tzaan, signifying 
sheep, flocks, and cattle (Bryant, vi. 378). And the fane of 
Artemis Agria was at Bubastus, the denounced Phibeseth of 
the Scriptures. 

Silarus, now Selo or Sila, according to Servius (iEneid, 12, 
1. 715, " mons et sylva"), a mountain and wood of Lucania. 
It seems to me to be the Sil Har — hill and grove of the Sun. 
Yirgil makes it famous for its fighting bulls : so the Boeotian 
Tanagra was famous for its fighting cocks (Bochart, i. c. 435). 
Also most likely some perversion.* 

The Silarus, Strabo says, was a petrifying river. Sela, says 
Bryant, was a place where there were fiery eruptions, and was 
a place dedicated to the Sun (vol. i. p. 39). 

We have our Tan Hill — Kybury Camp, on the Marlboro' 
Downs. It soars above Sil-buiy Hill. In our old vernacular 
Tan signified Fire, Re, the Sun. 

In Isaiah we have (xxx. 4) " his princes were at Zoan," 
rendered Tani both by Septuagint and Yulgate. 

III. 1. 252. 
" He and the foe unwary meet again" 
This distinctly has reference to the return of Caesar and 
flight of Pompey from Rorae, B.C. An. 50 — 

" Signa movet, prsecepsque oblituin fertur in hostem.'' 
So the 

" Pascitur in magna sylva forrnosa juvenca " 

was the Roman realm for which they fought. I have dropped 
the allegory in the translation. 



* Lord Brcmghton in his Albania says (p. 229), that Tanagra in Boeotia 
was under a hill called Corycius ; and he mentions Diana Agrsea in con- 
nexion with it. Bryant (ii. 188) adds that Orion's tomb was there. 



NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 121 



III. 1. 327. 

The Cinyps is brought in to grace the tale with another 
legend. It was a river which arose at the Hill of the Graces, 
and called beside, Zuch Abara, and Accabe. It was by the 
Triton in Africa, where Pallas Athena was born by Vulcan's 
blow from her Father's head. There is no sign of any river 
there now, says Eawlinson in Herodotus III. p. 152. 

III. 1. 426. 

The Onager. — I don't know what this signifies. There 
never were wild asses in Italy, and so far from being timid, 
wild asses are indomitable. 

Book IV. 

The bees of Aristaeus were the priestesses termed Melissas. 
Melitta or Melissa, says Bryant, III., p. 231, was no other 
than Damater, the supposed mother of mankind. She was 
the deity mentioned by Herodotus as enjoying with the Baby- 
lonians and Arabians joint honours with Dionusus. 

Bryant enumerates the following : — 

1. The northern side of the Danube was occupied by bees. 

2. The shepherd Comatas inclosed in an ark was nou- 

rished by bees. 

3. Jove on Mount Ida was nourished by bees. 

4. The Temple of Delphi was rebuilt by bees. 

They were, repeats Bryant, priests and priestesses of the 
ark, styled Seira, Theba, Selene, and Damater ; and that these 
were the persons who first cultivated the fruits of the earth, 
taught mankind agriculture, and weaned them from foul and 
unnatural repasts. 

In the Oracula Sibyllina, p. 241, it is stated that the cave of 
Trophonius was discovered by a swarm of bees ; the Consulti 
descended naked, or clad in white and purple vestments. 



122 NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 



In Holy Writ we have the Deborim. 

Deut. i. 44. " The Amorites chased you as bees do and 
destroyed you," &c. 

Ps. cxviii. 12. " They compassed rne about like bees." 

Is. vii. 18. " The Lord shall hiss for the bee in Assyria." 

The people here alluded to are the Deborim, to whom the 
prophetess Deborah appears to belong. She dwelt beneath 
Tamar, i.e. the Sanctuary of Baal Tamar, mentioned in Jud. 
xx. 33, conjoined with Baal Zebub, in Isaiah vii. 18. 

Buckingham, in his Travels, writes : — " We reached at noon 
the small village of Deborah, where we alighted to refresh, 
not suspecting that the treachery for which it is traditionally 
infamous in holy and in profane records, was still to be found 
at so distant a period." See art. " Jael;" Biblical Cyclopaedia. 

The chief star of Taurus is Aldebaran. Aldrovandus and 
Bochart III., p. 503, record that bees sprung from Taurs and 
wasps from Hippoi horses ; that the Melissas came from Taurs 
may be explained, that the fire Taur was their object of 
worship. The principle of blood and sacrifice involved in 
"Melas" black, got changed into honey, when those rites 
changed to sanctuary, and the white bulls became the symbols 
of Aristseus. 

Aristaeus was a fire-worshipper, son of Apollo. The Egyptian 
Apis was Abir, and Abir was a bull, whilst Apis is bee. 

The white bulls of Aristaeus, and the founding of the city 
Cyrene in his mother's name by him, although the fountain 
was sacred to the sun, and his presence in the sacred vale of 
Tempe, show that he was not the pagan Baal of fire and 
blood, but a sequent and benignant form of Baal. 

The Chevalier T. de Marigny, in his ' Circassia,' writes that 
" two names of their goddesses are still Melissa and Damater, 
slightly varied in orthography ; " and in connection therewith 
he writes of Tour'an and its fire- worshippers : and Tausch, on 
the Circassians, in the Asiatic Society's Journal, i. 107, makes 



NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 123 



the same remark, and adds that they have another who is 
patroness of bees, " Mercime, or the Mother of God. It is not 
known why she is so called, for her history has no connection 
with the title or the subject. Mercime is simply the patroness 
of bees." 

In like manner, as the Greeks turned the Melyttee into bees, 
they turned the race of the Ionim into doves, and have re- 
corded that Jupiter was fed by doves and changed into a dove, 
so likewise was Semiramis. 

Of these Grecian perversions, we may repeat — 

" Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade." 

With respect to the Cretan Ida, its conical peak towers over 
the rest of the isle, and the cavern, the Dsedalian labyrinth 
is six hundred feet above the plain ; a mountain cavern with 
a passage leading into the mountain, which diminishes sud- 
denly, and forces the votary to crawl (as at the Eamps 
in the pyramids, and the entrance to the cavern of New 
Grange on the Boyne), and at its termination a chamber 
with radii like a series of seven dials, one succeeding the other, 
there is water therein, and a large chamber of sacrifice ; its 
present name is Gotyna, but the Gortygian bulls have wholly 
disappeared, only goats remain in Crete. Scott's ' Egypt and 
Candia.' A similar peak, which is the centre of Majorca, is 
still called Toro. We might add to all this the myth of Pasi- 
phae and the Minotaur, which is another link of the bull, if 
not of the bee. 

Line 295, et seq. 

" Exiguus primurn atque ipsos contractus ad usus 
Eligitur locus : hunc angustique imbrice tecti 
Parietibusque premunt avctis : et quatuor addunt 
Quatuor a ventis obliqua luce fenestras." 

The Phoenician tongue recorded by Plautus reads as very 
good Irish, says Sir William Betham in his ' Gael and Cymbri,' 



124 NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 



and therein occurs the passage, " And grateful fires on stone 
towers will I ordain to blaze to Heaven," the stone tower being 
Lie Tor, and the Lie Tor is a Pyramis, — a Pyrarnis being, 
according to Plutarch, "the first of bodies," "the seminary or 
beginning of fire," and Pj thagoras also maintained, that of the 
pointed Pyramis was made fire. 

The stone tower of Ireland, in the words of Geraldus Cam- 
brensis, " quce, more jpatrice, arctce sunt et altce, necnon et rotundce" 
does singularly as Lie-tor, agree with the text of Virgil. The 
area of it is contracted to the smallest base, covered at the 
roof, and the four windows casting their light oblique on its 
area. The race to this day are fire-worshippers, and these 
doubtless their Pyratheia ; add to which that we find the 
Cabiric cavern at New Grange, and the mysteries the like as 
they were performed at Samothrace, if we may accept the pas- 
sage of Strabo (1. 4, c. 4, s. 6), and its application by Mr. Faber. 

The Bound Tower is by no means unique. It is found in 
India, as related in Moore's ' Ireland,' c. 2 ; and Mr. Dennis 
had discovered one on an Etruscan vase, the scene represented 
being the Boeotian Thebes. 

To connect the fire-tower still nearer with this story of 
Aristseus and Proteus. 

The tower of Torone, which stood near Pallene, was a fire- 
tower and a Pharos ; it was called the flaming Torone, and 
the country around Phlegra. There seems to have been a 
fire-tower named Proteus, who was married to Torone ; he 
was styled gloomy from the cruel rites practised in those 
places. They sacrificed strangers shipwrecked. Pallene was 
called, nurse of the giant-brood. Proteus fled by a subterra- 
nean passage from Pallene to Canopus on the Nile, from one 
Pharos to another. The Pharos of Egypt was both a watch- 
tower and a temple. Proteus was an Egyptian title of the 
deity, under which he was worshipped, both in the Pharos 
and at Memphis. The Grecians also made a Proetus out of 



NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 125 



this word; and his daughters or priestesses Prcetides were 
turned into cows. (See Bryant IT., p. 256, et seq.) I think it 
is self-evident that this chapter of Bryant's treats of the sub- 
ject which Virgil is recording in the 4th book from .1. 295. 

The Pumice Dome, 1. 395. 

This does not mean a dome of pumice rock, than which 
nothing could well be imagined more unsightly or at variance 
with the crystal dome of line 384. The huge domes and 
canopies, especially the dome of Caligula's Baths, were formed 
of the materials pumice and cement. I have bits of the pumice 
which have fallen which show no mark of age or injury, 
Although they have stood fifteen or sixteen centuries, they 
are as fresh as the day they were ejected from the volcanic 
craters of Lipari. 

" And with, twain taurine horns Eridanus," 1. 392. 

How the river Padus was first called the Eridanus is 
unknown. Herodotus says he will not admit the fact of such 
a river ; and Strabo also repudiates it for the Padus, as well as 
for the Eridanus of Athens, which was " outside the gate Dio- 
chares," for it needed an index to its whereabout. Pausanias 
thrust it on into Gaul. The fact is the original Erythraea was 
the Persian Gulf; and the region about Ormutz was probably 
that of the first sea-going vessels, which were called " Is ysaean 
steeds," It got constellated, and is shown as a reedy gulf 
and Canopus, which was also called " the horse " (Dean Yin- 
cent's ' Erythraean,' vol. ii. p. 208, 287), is at the bottom of it, 
from thence it travelled to the Egyptian Gulf and on to 
Cadiz, where it duplicated its legends of the Persian Gulf. 
From thence, in conjunction with the fall of Phaeton and 
the conversion of his sisters from Heliades, Priestesses of the 
Sun, into Lebanotides, or Priestesses of the Moon, — as Lebani 



126 NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 



poplar trees — it got assigned to the Padus, and evidently the 
Roinan poets were charmed with the legend, though their 
sages despised it, and nsed to ask derisively where were the 
chanting swans, the amber-weeping poplars, &c. 

We find that the fire-worshippers were wont to raise 
mounds at the parting of a stream ; such a one exists at the 
meeting of Tigris and Euphrates, and is called to this day 
Khorna, signifying horn. It had as synonyms Apameia, from 
being surrounded by water (Bochart, I. c. 83, 1. 43), and Koma, 
from its -mound. At the junction with the Eulseus there was 
a similar mound, which was thrice carried away by the flood, 
/.nd thrice reinstated. Loftus's ' Chaldsea,' p. 282. 

In the " Shield of Hercules," by Hesiod, all the nations of 
the world assembled to raise the mound of Cygnus ; but the 
river (Anaurus), the fount of fire, arose and indignantly swept 
it away, by command of Apollo, whose Delphic treasures had 
been raided by Cygnus. 

The Cuthite mound Aouris, as Cercasoura at the first 
parting of the Nile was apparently carried off by the 
river; the word aor signifying light, and so rendered in 
Is. xviii. 4 and xxvi. 19, a clear heat upon the aor ; and again, 
thy dew as the dew of the (aor) dawn. 

Jer. vii. Who is this coming up as an aor. 

Jer. viii. Egypt riseth up like an aor. 

Amos viii. 8. It shall rise up wholly as an aor, and it 
shall be cast out and drowned as the aor of Egypt, which is 
repeated in c ix. v. 5. 

Amos viii. 9. I will darken the earth in the aor. 

Now Cercasoura was a famous spot, but it was a mere fane 
and no town. Bryant vi. 160, seeks for it in vain as a town. 

At Rome we find Har Sil again as Hersilia, who, her coma 
(hair or mound) cut off, was deified as Ora. 

The words Karanim and Karanoth signify equally, horns 
and rays ; and Coma signifies equally the mound and hair. 



NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 127 



Thus arose the myth of Peleus vowing his hair to Spercheius. 
Pansanias, when he saw a statue of a boy offering his hair to 
the Cephissus remarks. " But that it was an ancient custom to 
cut off locks of their hair to rivers you may infer from the 
poesy of Homer, in which he relates that Peleus vowed his 
hair to the river Spercheius for the safe return of Achilles 
from Troy," c. 37. Taylor's Pausanias. So Arsinoe and 
Berenice vowed Chomahs, mounds, for their spouses, which 
have been rendered their locks of hair. 

Our own country is full of such mounds, but their antiquity 
is not recognized. 

The mound dates froin the rise of Paganism. 

At Babel it does not appear to have been unbenignant ; but 
the Typhonian mounds, having their origin from thence, were 
cursed with human slaughter. Another set of Ogygian mounds 
as those of Cycnus, of Alyattes in the lake Gygeea, and that 
made by Hercules with the aid of Minerva and the Trojans to 
save him from the marine Ketus (Iliad xx. 1. 145), were sur- 
rounded by waters, affording sanctuary. Under the first head 
we find instances in holy writ under the word Chomah (trans- 
lated wall). Baasha, king of the Moabites, sacrificed his eldest 
son on the Chomah of Kir Heres, and Saul's body was nailed 
to the Chomah of Beth Shan. Destruction by divine fire is 
announced against the Chomoth of Tyre, Gaza, Bozrah, Eabbah, 
and Damascus. In the East we read of the sacrifices to the 
goddess Kali on these mounds, on a scale of frightful mag- 
nitude ; and in the North, the like to Odin on his mounds — 
where Earl Hachon offered his son in sacrifice, and Aim, king 
of Sweden, his nine sons, and of a nine years' sacrifice offered 
by the Danes of 99 men ; whilst those to Kali consisted of 
1008 human victims and 99 horses (Asiatic Journ. VII. 129). 
Like sacrifices were offered at Mexico on their Teocalli. 

Pairs of mounds were erected on rivers, which appear to 
have been sacrificial and called Taurs, translated Bulls ; such 



128 NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. 



were those of Colclios, of Lemnos, &c. ; such were probably 
the two pyramids of Gheeza, the horned snake, the kerastis, 
which is the symbol of the builders upon their cartouches, 
probably symbolizes the Nile and its two fire mounds ; they 
were called Kerastse, and met with in Cyprus are condemned 
for the sacrifice of mortals. Ovid, Met. x. 223. 

Achelous had two horns, but the beneficent Hercules broke 
off one, and the other became a cornucopia, signifying that 
the sacrifice of blood being abrogated, the Pharos became the 
symbol of peace and plenty. 

There were the Bomoi On, or mounds of the Sun, in 
pairs, eternal subjects of jeer and ridicule. They were made 
asinine by the Greeks, and the ass's shadow at midday, when 
the mound affords none, Midas' Ears, and numerous absurd 
perversions as proverbs ; the Ass among the Kumaians, amongst 
the Bees, amongst the Monkeys, in ointment, — all form con- 
junctions of the mound of the Sun, with the Mount Meru, the 
Melissae, the Kumans, and the Pithecoi. 

And yet this harmless double fane probably had its rise 
from the origin of astronomy, when 5000 years ago the vernal 
passage of the Sun was through Gemini, whence they raised 
mounds of the On (or Sun) and passed betwixt their benignant 
fires. The Constellation descended perhaps as Onoi (Asses) 
was made Hoedi (kids), and thence changed into the Twins, 
whilst the Onoi became a lost constellation ; and whilst on the 
other hand, the passage betwixt the fires became in those rites 
which may be called Tauric, the means of human sacrifice. 

We have the dedication of mounds recorded as of dedicated 
hair, in the cases of Peleus, Arsinoe, and Berenice. The for- 
tified Phoenician Chomahs as the punicean locks of Nisus and 
of Pterelaus, betrayed by their daughters Scylla and Cometho. 
The Comata of Semiramis became mighty fortresses as Tyana, 
Aintaub or Hieracoma, and Aleppo. The ten Chomahs which 
mark the passage across the desert from Coptos to Berenice, 






NOTES TO THE GEOlUiHJS. 129 



were considered as villages, of which the Grecian Kome is n 
synonym. 

Mounds are recorded on Promontories — as tombs of Elpenor, 
Palinurus, and Boewulf — and very probably as fire-towers 
dedicated to Poseidon, as was Polyphemus whose eye was put 
out by Ulysses. Ulysses, the Eponym of another set of mounds 
with crypts, of which that of Antiquiera, or Teba, perhaps the 
noblest cavern covered by its mound which exists, is recorded 
by Strabo, cap. IV. s. 3, as an Ulyssea ; and which fact 
accounts for the rivalry of Ulysses and the fiery mound of 
Polyphemus ; and over the wide world mounds have been 
sepulchral, and conjoined with groves and sanctuaries. These 
mounds are also called the tombs of the Amazons, at Troy 
and in Boeotia. 

Lastly, we have the diluvial theory of the Arkites in respect 
to many of these mounds, that they are mimic Mount Ararats, 
or rather Mount Baris ; of which our Mount Snowdon, Eryri, or 
Bryth, and the Tomen y Bala at Llanfair, at the mouth of the 
lake Bala, afford a case in point. 

" The sanctuary, which once floated on the wide lake, is 
now fixed on the margin." 

" There the sacred Ox is stationed to draw the shrine to 
dry ground." 

" There the dance is performed, and the priests move side- 
ways round the sanctuary." 

" There the Eagle waves aloft in the air, marking the path 
of Gran-Wyn," (the White Sun.) 

" Complete is my Cadyr in Caer Sidi, whilst the inundation 
of the copious fountain surrounds," &c. &c. Davies, British 
Druids, pp. 119, 171, 154. 

The goddess Ked, or Ceridwen, was the Keto of antiquity, 
p. 114, 122; she was daughter of the Patriarch Noah, 122, 
126, 571; the Ark of Noah, 176; preserved Corn in the 
Deluge, 176; British Ceres, 368, 372, 402; her chief priest, 

K 



jf, ti-e-J> 

t?862- 
130 NOTES TO THE GEORGICS. ^ 

and vassal — Coracles, symbol of the Ark, 230, 237 ; she was a 
Fury, a Giantess, a Botanist, First of Women, Goddess of 
Corn, Modeller of Youth, Buler of Bards, a Sailing Vessel, a 
Bird; she had her Cauldron and Sanctuary, and was wor- 
shipped conjointly with the Moon. 

Nine damsels tended her Cauldron, which split in twain, 
and poisoned the horses of Gwyddno, p. 214. She herself 
ejaculates—" My Chair, my Cauldron, my Laws, my Elo- 
quence ! " Such were the endowments and emblems which 
once attached to the Mount of Bala Lake, to Silbury Hill, and 
many other unnoticed mounds by our lakes and rivers. And 
to return to our subject, the Eridanus. From such mounds in 
the Persian Gulf, or from such legendary lore attaching 
generally to sacred rivers and streams, Eridanus and our own 
Father Thames, were crowned with twain Taurine horns. 



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